22: Love is All You Need

  

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

-The Beatles

Love was abound in the Kindergarten 2 classroom this week as the children celebrated the day of hearts: 

Valentine’s Day. 

I’d like to think of love as a universal language, one that unites and binds us as a people, and one that we all speak and understand regardless of where we come from. 

Origami hearts, cutouts, drawings of hearts and chocolates were abundant as the children expressed their love to their teachers, parents and friends through little gifts. I asked the kindergarteners: 

Why do we love these special people in our life, especially our parents?

I love them because they cook for me.

I love them because they play with me.

I love them because they bring me to school.

I love them because they take me to the mountain.

I love them because they buy me toys. 

I love them because they read stories for me.

And of course…

I love them because they love me. 

This is what love looks like in the eyes of 4-5 year-olds. They’re wonderful testaments to the kind of love that they are surrounded with, so we preserved them into a little book for their parents to read. 

Have you received yours? 😍

We tried going deeper into the many facets of love and how it is expressed by creating a collaborative storytelling exercise with Kindergarten 1. Our provocation for the activity was: 

What are the different ways that we show love?

The children drew different pictures of stories when they have shown “love” to others through their choices and actions. Some stories are about their family, and some about their friends. What was common was the presence of people who are special to them.

 

We extended our understanding of love by connecting it to our current unit. You see, to be able to truly practice what it means to take care of the planet, love must be present in our hearts. The children began sharing their love by taking care of our classroom through a huge tidy up effort by everyone. (*photos to follow*) 

It may be a shorter week than the usual, but this week is a wonderful reminder that love need not only be celebrated in one day of the year. It can be expressed not only in giving flowers, chocolates, or beautifully wrapped presents. Love is the most powerful when it is coupled with simple actions to show how much we care. 

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. 

Your Kindergarten teacher,