LEGO and MY BODY
Our body is full of mystery. We look at our body everyday in front of the mirror in the morning brushing our teeth and yet we have a lot of questions to ask. Is our nose part of our body? This week, we have been talking about the things inside our body; we know that there is brain, bone, blood, food and water inside our body but what anything else? Hmm...they are tough questions but we had a great discussion today to answer some of the questions. We also continued with our self-portrait drawing as a way to review our body parts and how each part looks like. It was so sunny and hot today that it felt like we are going backwards in our season calendar, nevertheless, we had a wonderful time at the park!
This morning, we were busy again on the balcony doing more carpeting work. The pictures may show otherwise but we should not be restricted in any gender stereotyping—we would like to encourage both boys and girls to experience the fun of hammering and nailing throughout the year :) Speaking of encouragement, sometimes, we can forget about some of the great playing areas in the classroom despite being there everyday. So the teachers reminded us that we can in fact use the huge Lego board on the wall. In no time everyone was getting down on their knees being creative with their hands. One friend who found a fish in the Lego box decided to make an aquarium. Some friends enjoyed building boat-airplanes and Star Wars spaceships. Some friends enjoyed quietly observing the nature materials at the table. At another table, we stood in front of a big mirror and we were asked to show ‘our body.’ Some shyly touched their tummies saying, “here…?” or some confidently made a big circle around their body. When we were asked if our ears are our body, a few answered, “No.” We decided that this would be a good topic to talk about during circle time but for the meantime, those who had a chance to sit at the activity table went over the different parts of our body and put them down on a piece of paper. For those who had not had a chance earlier this week, signed on our ‘Flowers Class Contract’ on our final version.
Playing with Lego is so much fun but cleaning up is another story—especially because in Flowers class we have to sort out the pieces in colors. After all the pieces were picked up, we accidentally dropped one of the drawers and all the blue pieces were scattered on the floor...Oh no! Two friends volunteered to help Liezel pack all the pieces back again. Another small but kind gestures shown by our friends that make our day :) Thank you!
After greeting each other with our morning song, one friend counted the number of children in English and another friend counted in Japanese. While we were being counted some of our friends thought it was funny to hide their head inside their T—shirts but actually this made one friend feel a little sad—our friends and teachers want to see our faces because our faces tell a lot of things about how we are feeling if we are sad, angry, tired or happy. Circle time is such a great opportunity to talk about important topics that come up on site. Then we moved onto our body conversation and here is how it went...
Nanako: Is my nose a part of my body?
E: Body.
A and R: No.
Nanako: Hmm...Okay, remember Shelly talked about our brain? What does it do?
Y: For thinking.
W: I have a book it has our head, eyes, and our body. I know something, something hard inside and that’s a bone and it’s not strong. Steel is strong.
A: If you turn your bone like this, your bone is strong.
Nanako: You mean that bones can get stiff or hard if we don’t stretch like we do in Miyashita-sensei’s class. Okay, going back to our body talk, the brain thinks; it’s like a machine to tell you to do different things.
W: Like a robot.
R: Sometimes, our brain can be square, circle, tiny and big. It can be any shape.
Nanako: If you want, we can look at a picture of a brain. So where is our brain?
R: Not here (touching his chest), our heart is here. The brain is not next to our heart. Our brain is here in my head.
Nanako: Yes, so actually your head is an important part of your body with the brain inside. Let me ask again, is your nose part of your body?
M: Yes!
A: No.
Magnus: I think nose is part of my body because it’s in our head and it’s connected.
Nanako: Very good. Is there anything else inside our body, other than brain, bones, blood, food and water?
William: Pancake and juice.
Magnus: Porridge and egg.
Jamie: Chocolate cake.
Nanako: I think we are too hungry to think anymore! Let me just give you one hint...(she breathes in). What did I just do? What did I put inside my body?
Emma: Air.
Nanako: Is air inside our body?
Emma: No, because it’s going to go out again.
Rafael: If you don’t breath, we will die and then no one can save us.
Nanako: Very good. So although we always breath out like Emma says, we cannot live without air.
M: When we breath in, we put oxygen in our body. Oxygen makes our blood red.
WOW!!!! We are so surprised how much our conversation developed and such big words we know already! However, after using our brain to listen, think and concentrate, we were so ready to have some healthy snacks to refuel our growing body!
At the park, one friend was happy to reunite with his little brother and it always adds to our fun playing together with our Petals friends and teachers. Some friends were making “ocean” with the sand and water. A lot of our friends loved running and playing Little Fish and Big Shark Game with Nimo in the green area. We also made funny trails with our watering can :p With the heat and a lot of exercise, by the time we were back to school we were drained in our own sweat. Our heart was beating with all the excitement so it was good to have some quiet time reading a book. Today, we read The Mood Hoover By Paul Brown about a boy called Stan who made a machine that sucked up all the happiness, colors and beautiful things. How did he like his gizmo? Perhaps, we can tell you about the story over the weekend!
Thank you for a fantastic Friday!
Xoxo Flowers Class Children