But why?

Today was Mission Day at school. It was such a fun day! Mission Day is basically a day where kids rotate around classrooms and learn about different countries & the needs that exist there (you can find out more on my class' blog tomorrow... some of my Year 3 girls are half way through writing a persuasion to convince you that Mission Day is the best day... You should probably read it). The kids all come dressed up in clothes from another country. Most of my Year 3 girls came as Hawaiians & my Year 4 boys came as 'American Gangsters' haha! Next door five Year 4 boys came as Ned Kelly... um kinda missed the point (he was an Australian Bushranger...) . Obviously a bit of costuming peer pressure happening in Year 3 & 4.


In my classroom we did Japan... so I got to wear a kimono and thongs to school today! I had 4 different classes come and visit my country. I told them some general facts, we prayed for the country, we learnt some basic greetings (I still remembered some from my 7 years of Japanese at school), we did some dancing to this catchy song (random youtube find)

we played Jankenpon (scissors, paper, rock) & made origami dragon heads...



One of my favourite moments of the day was when I was making the dragon heads with Year 4. I was showing them how to fold the paper with the colour on the inside & one boy called out "but why!?"
I loved that question & the way he asked it!
He couldn't see the bigger picture. He wasn't doubting that I knew what I was doing, but he couldn't see how folding all the colour inside was going to work out in the end. While the rest of the class followed the direction without batting an eyelid it made him slightly uncomfortable. Was this really going to make the toy I had promised they would have in the end?

It was such a cool reminder to me - so often I ask God that same question "but why!?" I'm sure God laughs, he knows the big picture.  That life doesn't always have to make sense, there are uncomfortable & weird bits. But he sees the end of the story too! He knows that the colour needs to start on the inside.

I love that I learn from my kids.

My other 2 favourite moments of the day:
- A kindy girl dressed in a Hawaiian skirt and lei told everyone she was from Turkey... when another teacher told her she was dressed in Hawaiian clothes she said "well I'm a bird and I can sleep over in Turkey if I want to" Um... I love kindy logic.
- When I had Year 2 today and we played a game where I would call out a number in Japanese & they had to get themselves into groups of that number (this worked real well with the other 3 classes I had), the kids didn't like seeing anyone left out so each time they would beg me "but can't we just have a group of six (or three, or five)! It's not fair that she doesn't have a group!" so cute.