The Past, Present & Future of Transportaion

Happy Monday! The last days of February are here, and were ready for spring weather!

CIRCLE TIME

We have been learning about rhyming words like hat and cat. They are different than words that begin with the same sound, like K and C. We’re still in the process of figuring out the differences, but we’ll have it down in no time.

We read a book that would help us hear a lot of rhyming words.

BOOK TIME ( Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss )

Even though some of us have read this book before, we thought that the title was funny! We’ve never seen green eggs before, but we’ve ate other kind of eggs.

Re: Daddy read this before.
Sh: Everyday I eat a hard egg. Inside is yellow, not green.
Da: I have that food at home always. But dad say only on Monday.
Ka: I have brown egg and white egg. I can crack it like this…(shows us how to crack an egg carefully)

Au even told us a story about another egg…

Au: The egg was cracking on the grass. The baby duck walk in to the river. Then the ducky went to the boat and go home.

On the very first page of the book, there were three words, “I am Sam.”

Do you notice anything about “am” and “Sam”?

Hi: Last one is the same!

We noticed right away that those two words rhyme. Let’s see if there will be more rhyming words as we progress in the story…

Hi: Mouse and house!

Ky: Fox and box!
Hi: Last one is “x”

Ka: Car and…
Be: Are!

Be: Rain and train.
Ka: Goat and boat.

We started finding it easy to spot the rhyming words, but it’s still a bit challenging for us to come up with our own rhymes. We’ll keep learning more words that rhyme, and soon enough we’ll be able to.

QUESTION OF THE DAY ( Is a train faster than an airplane? )

Surprisingly, we were pretty divided on the topic; split down the middle on “yes” and “no” responses. We had strong convictions about our positions and were not easily swayed by the opposition.

An: Airplane is more faster, because it flies.
Ar: Airplane; you can sleep and eat.
Sh: Do you know what is more faster? Shinkansen!

Hi: When airplane is down, it go slow. But when it flies, then it’s fast! Shinkansen keep moving and stopping. Airplane just go.
Au: Train is gonna stop at the station. When the airplane go down, it go slow.
Da: Airplane go down, then it goes slow.
Ky: Shinkansen is not train.
Be: Yes, it is. It’s a type of train.

Ka: Shinkansen is fast! Door open by itself. We need a driver, but electric car don’t need a driver, it stops by itself. So we can go everywhere. I see electric scooter too!

Be: Train is faster because some trains go even no stopping. It go from here to there. Airplane only go when everyone gets on. You can just get on the train when it stops.

Ar: Shinkansen have table. You can do anything you want! You cannot scream though.

Ky: When you get off the train, it’s gonna stop at the station. Airplane is not fast! Pilot people is too slow.

Ka: Some trains have a driver, but some don’t have a driver. You can go to the front, you can see the window. You can go to the back, you can see the window.

Those are some compelling arguments from both sides! We then looked at some pictures of different vehicles throughout time. We saw one picture of a vehicle from today, one from long ago, and one currently in development that might become widespread in the future.

First we looked a picture of a car from today…

Ky: BMW needs lot’s of money!

Then we looked at an old car called Model T.

Sh: I know this! It’s called a jeep tractor.
Be: My dad and mom have a jeep.

Then we looked at a driverless car, with a person in the driver's seat reading a book.

Sh: It’s a car nobody driving!
Ky: My daddy car, you gonna go other side, you have to drive. You gonna be middle, you don’t need to drive.
Re: My Wakayama car, you don’t need to drive. You can just play game, eat donut. So big!

Then we looked at three trains. A steam-powered train, Hayabusa (a current shinkansen), and Maglev.

We thought that the way a steam-powered train might move is, “people need to push the back.” We all know about the Shinkansen and love it! We thought the picture of Maglev was another Shinkansen. It really does look the same, but it uses a different technology to move.

We learned that the Maglev is a train that uses magnets instead of wheels to move. What are magnets?

Iz: Something sticky, like metal that’s sticky.

We realized that we have magnets on our whiteboard. When opposite sides of the magnets touch, it sticks together, but as Be explained to us, “if it’s the same side, it doesn't touch. But if you’re really strong, you can push it together.”

We found out that the Maglev train and track work together using magnets to propel the train down the tracks at higher speeds that that of the current Shinkansen. Japan is currently constructing the track for this train that will eventually go from Tokyo to Osaka. The journey will only take about an hour! So fast!

Lastly, we took a look at a picture of a current passenger airplane and the very first airplane.

Be told us that she had seen an airplane like that somewhere in America. She told us that she go to sit in the cockpit of many different airplanes and pretend to fly.

We thought that the old airplane looked scary, because there were no windows, walls, doors or anything! Ky thought that we would need to wear a parachute if we travel using that airplane, because we would probably, “fall all the way to ground and die!”

We voted for which transportation vehicle we would want to take the next time we travel somewhere. Some of us explained why...

-Model T-
Sh: Because it’s shiny!

-Self-Driving Car-
Ri: Because you cannot drive.
Ka: Because you don’t get tired. You can sleep if you want. You don’t need to drive. In my grandma’s car, you can hear a song and story. I can fall asleep.

-Current Shinkansen-
Hi: Because so fast!
Ky: Because so fast! You can eat lunch, I don’t need to drive, you can buy something.

-Maglev-
Da: Because it can stick!

-Modern Airplane-
Hi: Because it’s fast!

No one picked the regular car or the first airplane. The regular car was kind of boring for us and the airplane was just too scary and nobody wanted to take the risk!

At the end, we noticed that after the modern airplane, there wasn’t something futuristic that comes after that. Maybe we’ll find out if something exists next time…

We hope you have a great night! See you tomorrow!

Love,
Flowers XOXO