横浜YMCAが運営する全日制英語幼児園

“What do you want to be in the future?” “I want to be a florist!” “I want to be a doctor,” “I want to be a construction worker,” “I want to be a teacher.” “Wow, like us?”

Kitten students are learning about community helpers in this month. When we asked our students about their future dreams, none of them mentioned becoming a firefighter. Not even close….. but right after we visited a fire station to learn about firefighter’s jobs, they changed their minds! The students were so excited to try on firefighter uniforms, get on the fire engines, hold the long hoses, and put on their masks. In the beginning, students looked a little shy to ask firefighters questions, but they couldn’t stop asking questions in the end because all the equipment looked cool and stimulated their curiosity! Now, all our students are attracted to be a firefighter and declared themselves to be one in the future! Thank you, firefighters, for helping us to learn more about being a firefighter! It made our learning experience more special!

This past Monday, we celebrated Thanksgiving at YGK! Puppy, Kitten, and Cub class all gathered together to discuss what the Thanksgiving Holiday is all about! We read a book about the very first Thanksgiving and another about what it means to be thankful. The children really enjoyed both books. Then, we all discussed different things that we are thankful for in our lives! For example, some of the children said they were thankful for hugs from mom, our earth, playing with daddy, etc. It was very sweet! We are happy we were able to enjoy and celebrate Thanksgiving together!

November 20th is World Children's Day!

Last Saturday was the 22nd Yokohama YMCA International Charity Run.

Winter is just around the corner, and Cubs are longing for the beauty of snow, we made snowflakes using origami paper! Cubs had fun folding the paper and tried to cut and trim the paper to create amazing snowflakes. They were surprised on how unique each snowflake looked and loved the details of the snowflakes once they opened the folded paper. It was a great Art time and we will use these pretty snowflakes for our December calendar!  

Now autumn is here.  Some puppies have been enjoying filling small bags with acorns and watching the trees change color. We made a special bag for leaves, so everyone could enjoy our autumn walk.

We had story time first
Then we went for a walk.

We found trees with big leaves ,
trees without leaves like the book we read,
red leaves, yellow leaves and stinky fruits.
We enjoyed walking through our neighborhood.

Kitten students are learning about Community Helpers this month. As the start, we discussed who help our community and spent some time walking around the YMCA. We found some community helpers, such as police officers, construction workers, food vendors, and so on. We also checked inside of the YMCA and introduced them to our library on the 8th floor. Unlike public libraries, there was no librarian, but students were very happy to find a bunch of books there! Our students love reading books, so we spent our afternoon enjoying reading.

November is the child abuse prevention month.

Teachers of YMCA Global Kindergarten are also wearing an orange ribbon to show support to this movement.

The Kitten class teachers talked about the meaning of the orange ribbon in the class.

At first, the teachers asked the children if they knew anything about the orange ribbon.  Having no clue, most of the children just shook their head.    Still, some children said, “I wear a pink ribbon on my hair today,” or “I heard that a pink ribbon stands for cancer prevention.” Coming up with such ideas, we were surprised how wide knowledge they have.  The Kitten students are always willing to share their opinions with confidence just like this.  The teachers asked how they were feeling at that moment.  “I liked it today because we had music class!”, “I’m happy!”, “I enjoyed the fire fighter pretend play!”, “My lunch was yummy!”, “I am happy because I played a lot with friends!”, most of them were happy.  So, they started talking about who made them happy.  They thought and said, “because teachers teach us lessons”, “because my mom and dad take me to school”, “maybe because we have friends”.  The teachers explained that there were children who couldn’t go to school, suffered or even died from hunger because their parents didn’t cook for them or they underwent domestic violence.

At the end, they talked that each one of them was important and to be protected, and that they were really lucky because they were loved and protected by their parents.  After the talk, they brought up their own ideas, such as “why don’t we wear a blue ribbon?”  As some children said they wanted an orange ribbon, they made their own orange ribbons and put them on their bags.

We pray for the happiness for every child on the earth.

On October 31st, we celebrated Halloween at YGK!

We spent the whole day doing fun, different Halloween activities! In the morning, we read a book together talking about what Halloween is and how people celebrate it. Then we got into three small groups and did a sensory activity where the children felt inside a box but did not know what they were touching. We used different items that felt like brains, eyes, or an animal and they were having so much fun! After that, we had our candy tossing where the children were able to throw some candy to try and get them into their trick or treat bags. Finally, we had our trick or treating! The kids were so happy to receive so many delicious treats!

After lunch, we all changed into our costumes and got ready for the fashion show. Thank you so much parents for coming and enjoying! It was great to have you all there and all of the children looked great in their costumes! So much creativity! We hope you had a fun Halloween!

Check out our Facebook page for more pictures!