Trees Change… and So Do We!

"Do YOU change?" was Pauline's question for us during circle time.

"NO!" was E's immediate answer.

"No," A agreed. What do you think happened that made us change our mind? Read along and find out!

Free Play

The kitchen toys have become our favorite, so we played with them again today. We saw A take the chairs and put them upside- down on the floor. She took the cushions that were in the reading corner and covered the upside- down chairs with it. "I'm making house," she told us. This gave Pauline an idea, and we saw her take something out of our big cabinet. A's eyes widened is surprise.

"House!" she said excitedly. Pauline unfolded it and it looked similar to a tent! A and E were excited to play with it. They put all the toys they liked inside, then they got "The Three Little Pigs" puppets.

"Me is wolf, then you are pig, okay?" she told E and Pauline They both used the pigs puppet and put them inside the tent.

"Let me... go!" A said. Pauline said it was "Let me in."

"Let me.... in!" A said, and she pretended to blow the house down. E and Pauline giggled and pretended to scream "Aaaahhh!!!" and started to shake the tent as if it was being blown down.

"Now E is wolf and me and Pauline is pigs," A said. "Then Pauline is wolf, then me and E is pigs," she directed them. They had fun taking turns and reciting the story's famous lines such as "Little pig, little pig let me in!", "Not by the hair on my chinny- chin- chin!", and "Then I'll huff and I'll puff and blow your house down!"

After that, they played with the grooming set, and both girls pretended to apply makeup on each other.

"We're putting makeup," E explained as they were tinkering with the toy eyeshadow.

"I'm fixing her hair," she told us as she had the toy blowdryer and was drying A's hair.

Circle Time

We started off with some songs, like our "Good Morning" song. We requested "Let It Go", and Pauline happily obliged because she proudly said that she can finally play it on her ukulele, hehe. Then, she told us that she wanted to show a short video clip to us on her laptop. She asked us to use our good looking eyes and observe what happens. It was called a time- lapse.

"Wow, so fast!"E said. She was right- we saw everything covered in snow, then all the snow and ice melted, the lakes de- frosted and then everything turned green as the leaves grew back from bushes and trees and flowers bloomed.It stayed that way for a time as the sun shone brighter and brighter until the leaves turned yellow, orange, red, and brown-

"It's fall!" E said.

- and everything became frozen again and the snow returned. Wow. It was winter again!

Pauline then asked us what we saw.

"Sun- big, big sun!" A said.

"Fall, then winter," E said.

"The leaves- this," A said, pointing to the green Lego block container. "Then this and this," A said as she pointed to the yellow and red container. She's right! the green leaves turned yellow and red!

"What do you think happened to the trees during fall?" Pauline asked.

"Change," E replied.

"Yes! The trees change!" Pauline agreed, and A pointed out the Lego blocks container again to demonstrate how the leaves' colors change during fall.

"Well... how about YOU?' Pauline asked. "Do YOU change?"

"NOOO!" was our answer.

"Are you sure?" Pauline asked again.

"YES!" E and A both said.

"Hmm.. okay. Let me show you something..." and Pauline tinkered with her phone and showed us a picture of.....

"Who's this?" she asked.

"E!" A said. Yes, it was E, and she was smaller in the picture!

"Maybe I'm 1 years old or 2 here," E said.

"Are you big or small here?" Pauline asked.

"Small," both girls answered in unison.

"And now you're...." Pauline asked.

"BIG!" the girls said.

"Because I grow," E said.

"That's right- you were tiny- tiny- tiny and now you're big!" Pauline agreed.

"Look, my hand! It's so small here," E said, pointing to her baby picture.

"And now it's---"

"Big," E replied.

"So.... do YOU change?" Pauline asked. E's eyes went wide and she stopped as realization set into her. She nodded her head yes.

"No!" A disagreed. "She not change."

"How about you? You were a tiny- tiny baby before, too, right?": Pauline said. When you were a baby, you always cried when you want milk... Are you still a baby now?"

"Hmmm.... Ah, no! I grow!" A said.

"Do you change?"

"Yes! I grow big then big and big!" A replied. Pauline smiled and told them both that soon they will grow to be even bigger than her!

Park Time

We were excited when it was time to go to the park. Pauline said we will go to a different park and it was called Hinokicho Park. We had to cross the big pedestrian crossing- but before that, Pauline asked us about the traffic light.

"Look, the light is red. Okay, let's go!" she told us.

"No!" A and E told her.

"It's red," A said.

"Green- we go," E told her. We waited for the light to turn green and we crossed. We walked for 2- 3 minutes and we got to the park! Pauline said it was her first time there and she was pretty excited to explore, hehe. We found a big pond with clear water, and ducks swimming around.

"Can you take a picture here?" E requested, to which Pauline obliged. We saw the ducks swimming away from us and A said, "Bye, ducks! BYE!" We also saw a big, black bird perched on top of a rock- we don't know if it was also a duck.

"The trees are red! And orange! And yellow!" E happily pointed out the trees.

We wanted to play, so we walked towards a playground. We excitedly tried out the swing, slide, and jungle gym. We noticed a lot of fallen leaves on the ground- because it's fall already! Pauline had a plastic bag and we filled it with beautiful big maple tree leaves. The colors were a beautiful variation of brown, red, and orange. We saw some leaves that were color yellow, so we added them to our collection.

"We're going to wash the leaves, right?" E asked.

"Why?" Pauline asked with a chuckle.

"It's dirty!" E said.

"It's just sand," A reassured her.Pauline said she will make sure to take out the sand before we can use the beautiful leaves.

"Can I run now?" E asked after helping collect leaves.

"Sure!" Pauline said, and both her and A ran in circles on the grass.

"This park is big, big, big!" E commented.

Afterschool Class: Phonics (Tales From A to Z)

For Tuesday, we focused on phonics for our afterschool. We looked at an alphabet chart and pointed out the pictures we recognized. We then talked about the first letter which was "a", and A kindly taught us some French words like "pomme" for apple and "tomate" for tomato.

"I speak French and English and a little bit of Japonaise," A said.

"I know lots and lots of Japanese!" E said.

"Eh... I don't know Japanese," Pauline said.

"But you know itadakimasu and arigatou, right? Then you know a little Japanese, too," E encouraged her.

After that, they played a treasure hunt game with the letter a pictures that Pauline had. Pauline had hidden them in the room, and the girls excitedly searched for them They were able to recognize the pictures and remember the words "apple", "astronaut", "ax", "ant", "ambulance", and "alligator".

They also practiced writing the letter "a", and the girls did a fantastic job!

That's all for today- how about you? How was your day?

Love,

All the happy autumn children in Lighthouse