Scene from a Preschool

The other day, I saw a scene that made my heart so happy. I was walking Cash to his class at preschool, and this is what I saw in the preschool yard(I know, I should have brought my camera!):

--A group of 5 year olds with work boots and mops, cleaning out the school's rabbit cage.

-- Another group of children sitting around a low table with piles of wood, nails, and full-size hammers. They were happily nailing wood together and had very little supervision. There was a teacher standing over them, but she wasn't freaking out like I would have been! Cash brought home his wooden "Transformer" yesterday and was so proud of it.

--Another group of children with watering cans watering the schools garden. Each child planted either eggplant, tomato, or onion in April and this week, the veggies were harvested by the children. The harvested veggies were then cooked up into lunch for the kids.

--Some 3 year olds feeding the fish in the school's fish pond.

--A group of 4 year olds sitting around two aquariums full of baby turtles. They had science books with pictures of growing turtles, and they were comparing the pictures to the live turtles. A boy called Cash over to give him a handful of baby turtles to play with.

--And inside Cash's classroom (he is in the Usagi--rabbit--class), a group of children sat around a table with milk cartons, building castles with tape. At the other table, the teacher's aide was helping the rest of the children with origami.

The preschool here is all about developmental play. There is no letter learning or reading until actual elementary school. The children are read to, sung to, and hugged by all of their teachers. There is a strict no junk food policy for lunch time, and in fact, the teachers ask to please pack the child's lunch with foods they hate so that they can get used to the food.

The weather is good now, so most of the children run around barefoot and play in the mud. They do all of the cleaning themselves and also brush their teeth after lunch. It is very cool. It is also really neat to see Cash pick up Japanese words. I still think the preschool, 5 hours a day, 5 times a week, is a bit too long, but it definitely has good things going on!