January 8, 2026
Happy New Year and welcome back to school! Today we commenced our second term and with that, greeted new and familiar faces! Today we welcomed our new Buds Class friends, E I, K I, L N and M S! We are so happy to have you with us for the 2026 term!
This morning on the front table, some of our friends finished their tee shirt paintings and started a New Year Daruma craft! Daruma are a popular Japanese traditional doll that represent resilience, perseverance and good luck! To begin the tee shirt painting, we chose between four colors. The Buds used pink, purple, orange and green! Our new friends K and M did a wonderful job holding their paint brushes, showing great focus and interest.
For our Daruma, we used tooth brushes! Wow! Brandon showed us how to dip them into red paint and then flick the paint with our fingers to sprinkle red onto our daruma bodies. It was so much fun to explore painting with a tooth brush too!
On top of the back table, there were many animals roaming around! We discovered that the animals were visiting from their habitat puzzles! It was fun to search and sort them into the right space! We love puzzles! There was also a latch and buckle board for us to exercise our fingers!
CIRCLE TIME
For circle time, we reviewed where we were. We agreed that we all were at school as Brandon showed us a picture of both a home and Ohana. K and L saw the picture of home and both said “home” and “school” when they saw the picture of Ohana. Nice eyes and voices, Buds friends!
We then were invited by the teachers to place our name cards on the board and then counted up to 9 friends today!
L: “1”
K: “2”
T, L, K: “3”
L, K: “4”
L: “5”
L, K: “6”
K: “7”
L: “8”
We then read a story about a cute Daruma who wanted to join his friend “Tenguchan”. He really admired his friend and wanted to be just like him. With the help of mom and dad, Daruma created a fantastic outfit to join his friend Tenguchan for a festival! We liked seeing the illustrations of a Daruma as it helped us understand the shape and form of our Daruma crafts more!
DARUMACHAN STORY
Brandon: “What color is Tengu chan’s fan? Darumachan’s fan?
L: “Yellow, green”
Brandon: “Do they have hats on?”
T: “Same!”
Brandon: “What are these shoes Tenguchan is wearing? Geta!
L: “Geta”
Pretty soon, it was time for us to clean up, enjoy our snacks and head to the park!
When we arrived at the park, we discovered so many feathers were flying around! We also looked up and saw a big red helicopter! Wow!
Thank you all so much for a great first day back!
Lots of love,
Buds XOXO