Change-o ! Change-o!
...written on 02.20.04, @ 11:40 a.m.
Fri February 20, 2004
This week in my preschool classes, we've been focusing on how things change. I've shown them pictures of me as a child and even some pix from when I first got to Japan and now as examples of how we can change through growth and time.
I've shown them the video of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, where the caterpillar undergoes some significant changes himself, and after, we put the pages of the story back into their proper sequence to check their understanding of the growth/change process. To get them active again, they line up and we have a fruit count race. They run to the bowl with the fruit in it and count the pieces while putting it in the empty bowl next to it.
It's been interesting watching the different styles of counting. Some kids are three years old, some four, some five. Some count while they transfer, some count it while it's still in bowl number one or after, when it's in bowl number two. All kids can count correctly up to ten, but only one or two make it beyond without concocting their own new special numbering system in English.
I also have played a color memory game. I say a color and they grab the appropriate color chip. I usually make it up to four colors before they start to lose track. They enjoy taking over calling out the colors for their classmates as well.
Keeping on the theme of change, after we do the weather dance and I ask them "What's the weather like today?" and they chorus "Sunny!", I protest and exclaim that we should try and change the weather. They've caught on to this quickly without any translation help from the Japanese teacher and they have all eagerly held their hands to their temples, scrunched up their eyes and lips and chanted "Rain, rain, rain" with me, and have all sunk their shoulders with a big exhaled breath of disappointment, to see the sun still shining in defiance of our wishes. "No matter!" I say with a smile. "We can't change the weather, but we can change our clothes!" and they all run to get an umbrella or raincoat as I grab the squirt gun and we make our own little shower of rain in the classroom.
After a few more examples of things we can change and things that we can't, we all gather around the story tree where I recount my childhood memory of my father driving my brother and I around in the car and how, when we came upon a red traffic light, he would slow the car and intone magically "Change-o, Change-o!" and "poof!" the light would turn green and my brother and I looked at each other in gaped mouth surprise and awe at the tremendous power my father possessed. And I tell them that it wasn't too long after, that we ourselves used the magic word not only for stop lights, but at times that it really mattered when we needed change. When we were sad or angry, or when things weren't going our way or we needed to change our point of view, we would speak that special word "Change-o! Change-o!" and with more and more practice our inner harmony increased as we realized we had the power to control our reactions to the world around us and that made us not so small after all.