Welcome to a wonderful new school year! It has been such a pleasure to see the children again and meet new friends.
In CE this week I asked the children to look around our classroom and share their observations of the physical differences between the CE classroom and their regular classroom ("the CE classroom doesn't have any chairs," "there's a bathroom connected to the CE classroom," "the CE carpet is softer"). Yes, the CE House is a real house that someone used to live in before our elementary school moved in. No, Mrs. Abe does not live or sleep here.
We also introduced prayer and talked about what they could pray about ("my dog who died," "___ who is sick and not here today," "that everyone has a good day"). We also briefly shared a few names for God (God is love, God is the creator, and God is a king, which may be one reason why we bow our heads when we pray, just like how we bow to show respect when we meet the queen of England). In CE, children always have the option to pass, whether it's during prayer or sharing one's feelings. Also, we acknowledge that prayer and figuring out who God is are ideas that one ponders one's entire lifetime.
I also showed the children a picture that had several cartoon faces of different emotions on it and asked the children to try to identify which face they feel like and why. We call this time of sharing feelings "Ohana Time." I talked briefly with each child as they wrote and drew how they felt and why, and heard their different responses: "nervous about starting school," "happy to see my friends," "miss my mommy," "happy because my grandma's picking me up," "tired because I had to wake up early."
Another activity we did was a getting-to-know-you game, where children stood up if they liked _____. Then we did part 2 where children stood on one side of the room if they liked _____ and the other side of the room if they liked ____. Another important aspect of the game was when I asked them each time, "Is it ok for some people to like chocolate ice cream better than vanilla ice cream?" Yes! "Is it ok for some people to like vanilla ice cream better than chocolate ice cream?" Yes! We want to accept our differences and not make little comments that belittle someone else because they like something different, especially if only a few people were standing on one side. We also talked about how even if our close friends are standing on one side of the room because they like pepperoni pizza, it's okay to stand on the other side of the room away from them because we like cheese pizza.
Please remember that your children are going through a transition phase, so they may require more patience and understanding from you, they may require more sleep, and they may require more "down" time. It may be hard to remember your elementary school days, but try to remember when you first started a job. You had to figure out what your boss' expectations were, and you needed to learn to communicate with new co-workers both in a social setting as well as in a work setting. You even needed to learn how to navigate the new environment-- where the xerox machine and the bathrooms were located. Even if you were excited to start anew (or especially if you were not excited to start anew), I'll bet you felt some stress. That has been your child's world this week.
I am SO excited to start this new school year and look forward to learning more about and supporting each child this year. I am also really looking forward to all the exciting questions we will pursue and thoughts we will ponder! What a privilege it is to teach your children.
