Unpacking the Ways We Understand Respect

Building-up our perspectives in respecting others. we communicate a lot about our relationships how to establish healthy boundaries and respect personal space to foster trust, understanding, and overall well-being.

​How about we ask another friend? Felix suggests an idea when questioned What happens if a friend is not ready to play with us? In friendships, the ability to set and respect boundaries contributes to a harmonious and fulfilling connection with others.

During our discussion about the above, Nora points out a significant view on her drawing of flowers. She adds the significance of having personal spaces for flowers, too. Through this we understand how Nora demonstrates her sense of empathy which likely make others feel comfortable and secure.

Vivaan, being clear in his understanding, shares some strategies to apply whenever we encounter some issues or challenges. For example, when friends are not ready to share some resources, we can respond, Fine, maybe after.

Role-playing scenarios where we take turns to practice conversational ways to respect each other’s boundaries can be an effective tool. We use phrases like excuse me, may I join you? or may I have some space, please? to reinforce respectful communication.

Now that Spring has hit its stride, flowers are popping up everywhere. We are looking for a way to preserve this springtime beauty. Margo and Felix engage their pounding skills, using a mallet, in transferring the color of our collected flowers, which drop on the ground, onto watercolor papers. The precision in pounding is required here, as well as the intensity of the colors that we like to encounter. Felix is observed to ensure the arrangement of the flowers are steady throughout his pounding process.

Respecting natural materials collected by us, and to be re-purposed in another intentional way, inculcates our love and respect toward environment. There is no reason why we can't learn to respect and cherish the environment, simply by developing a relationship with the nature that surrounds us. On this learning opportunity, Emily exhibits her careful and intentional way to fill-in natural materials into the cylindrical cartons to be another space for bugs to linger around and experience.

By going through learning experiences, we learn about the texture and weight, by making multiple bird feeder pinecones. Nora and Margo revisit the experience for we observe the birds at our front yard may need some food likewise the ones we provide at our back yard. 

A couple of times, some fluttering butterflies are being part of our outdoor experiences. We take an opportunity to bring in a few books in relation to butterflies. 

Books support ourselves to embrace the emotional component that comes along with environmental stewardship. They helps us make that emotional connection to the natural world.

We encourage ourselves to participate in taking care of the environment. Explaining to each other why picking-up some trashes with the right tools is important in our ways of caring. We take pride in helping out in our small ways. We even think about extending our effortful attempt by cleaning-up some plastic trash on the beach, on our field trip to the beach in summer time.

The process of welcoming young caterpillars into our group observation and discussion has been enjoyed. Emily likes to connect the thumbs of her palms to shape butterflies' wings and conceptually moves in tune with the song of Fly, fly, fly the butterly.

Our excitement to closely observe the movement of the caterpillars and their diet enable us to grow our curiosity. Along the way, we include the distinct stages in butterflies' life cycle. 

Lukah predicts the size of young caterpillars may reach to the stretch of his thumb and pointer as they keep on consuming their nutritious wheat and soy food. 

Margo highlights the characteristic of the caterpillars from the way they move their bodies. Brooks adds the numbers and positions of individual caterpillars such as on the ground, on the wall (side), and ceiling (top). 

And for us to nurture our love for fresh veggies and herbs, building a veggie or herb garden at our front yard, is indeed fruitful. We are so delightful to observe our growing peas. Understanding it requires to be transferred onto the soil ground, we work together to dig and transfer the growing peas out of the pots gently. 

Kindest,
Children & Friends.