The Big Picture

Before the Easter Holiday, my 4-year-old daughter Sienna brought home from her pre-school a finished project: on a black cardboard with some spiral pattern, scattered some balls with different colors in various sizes. Some were already loose and some were still glued on. "Are these special Easter eggs?" I asked. "No, they are planets," answered Sienna. In the most definite manner, she pointed to each of the balls and cited names of the 9 planets.

Last night, she didn't let me stop after I read 8 storybooks about princess, piglets, alligator, Madeline, scarecrow, among other things So I struck a conversation, in English, about the planets. Here is a re-account, word for word. (I find speaking Chinese only with her sometimes limits our scope of communication, although it's something I am still committed to doing.)

Mom: So which is the biggest planet, Sienna?
Sienna: It's Jupiter.
Mom: Which is the smallest?
Sienna: Pluto.
Mom: What planet do we live on?
Sienna: Earth.
Mom: Which planet is closest to us?
Sienna: Mars.
Mom: The farthest?
Sienna: Pluto.
Mom: What do you have to tell me about Mars?
Sienna: It's red.
Mom: What about Venus?
Sienna: It's yellow and beautiful.
Mom: What about Moon?
Sienna: Moon is not a planet, Mommy. But it's white.
Mom: Is Sun a planet?
Sienna: No, sun is a star, a bright bright star.
Sienna: Oh, look, Pluto! (Picking up a small gray ball on the floor, that apparently fell off from her planet project.) Mommy, throw it at me. throw it. It won't hurt. Don't worry.
Mom: (After doing the throwing and missing it.)Which planet do you like the most?
Sienna: Earth.
Mom: Why?
Sienna: Because, because it's the best.
Mom: Is that it?
Sienna: Because, we live on earth. All people live on earth and all children. The winter will go, the spring will come.
Mom: Why not Mars? It's next to the Earth.
Sienna: Mars is too hot, there is no water, Mommy (My watergirl speaking).
Mom: Don't you want to try living on the Moon?
Sienna: No, thanks.
Mom: Why Earth...?
Sienna: No more talk about planets, Mommy, you need to help me do the puzzles.

After having easily score 100 on this mini test, she was apparently moving way from the solar system. She already started doing a 40-piece puzzle and finished it in no time. While we were still talking, she pulled down a box from her puzzle collections on the shelf, "Look, mommy, it's a planet puzzle!" She did the 70-piece puzzle a while ago and now she noticed that it was in fact a 3-dimensional picture of the solar system with a boy wiz flying over it along with his dog. She got so excited over her new discovery of the puzzle. "Let's do it, let's do it, Mommy. Here is the sun, let's do the sun first!"

Chinese has a saying, the mind of a kid is like a blank sheet of paper. You can choose to draw different pictures on it. How about the solar system? What a nice big picture to go in there! Huh? Also, thanks to the Montessori system which insists on making young kids to be more aware of their environment. It's just wonderful knowing that she knows we comfortably reside on a beautiful planet called Earth.