Tut tut it looks like rain

The Opposite Game was so much fun yesterday, we decided to continue playing it while sitting on the mat. We ended up having some really complicated things to do and some of our friends gave suggestions, for what we can do.  The first one we did was the same as yesterday. We sat in a pattern that went “boy, girl, boy girl………………..” all the way around the circle. So we said, “Boy” or “Girl” when it was our turn. The second one was the girls sitting with their legs straight on the carpet and the boys sitting with their legs bent. So girls said “straight” and boys said “bent”. Afterwards Orion suggested that the boys make their legs straight and the girls keep their legs bent. So we went around the room again but this time boys said “straight” and girls said “bent”. The next one was the most trickiest and it led us to have a discussion about people who cannot see, and how they get around in the world. What senses do they use in order for them to be able to relate to the world. We decided that they probably use their hands to touch things and they have very good listening ears.

You may be wondering what the action was that we did! Again we swapped so that the girls could do what the boys did and the boys did what the girls did!  The girls closed their eyes and the boys kept their eyes open. How were the girls going to know when it was their turn if their eyes were closed. Taisei: “We can touch them”. We thought that was a great idea. They can also listen carefully when the friend sitting next to them says something. And this is what led us to talk about people who cannot see. Shelley was wondering how they know where to walk on the road when they cannot see. Taisei said: “There are bumps on the road”. Then Shelley told us that people who cannot see usually walk with a white stick that they move around on the sidewalk so that they know they are safe. Sometimes people also have a guide dog that takes care of them. Ai told us that if we walk in the street with our eyes closed, we can bump into things.

We hope that people who cannot see and are blind, do not bump into things. Some people think that we use our sense of sight so much that we do not strengthen our sense of listening enough. We played a game with Shelley with her keeping her eyes closed and one of us going up to her so she could use her sense of touch and try to guess who they were. She was able to guess Taisei because he had a new haircut and Alona because she has long hair but she couldn't guess Orion. She asked him a question and when she heard his voice, she knew who he was. Sometimes we need to feel and touch and other times we need to listen.

And the next way to learn more about this was to go for a walk in the neighbourhood. We wanted to walk on the bumpy parts of the sidewalk to see how it feels. When we left school there were a few rain drops and then the sunshine appeared. So off we went to Azabu Juban shotengai and some other streets in the area. We actually went down to a tunnel that went underneath one of the big streets, but there were no bumpy parts in the tunnel. There were many bumpy parts before we went down the stairs. We could feel the bumps and for some of us it was not so comfortable. Now we know how people who are blind and cannot see, use their feeling sense, to find their way, when they are walking. When we walked along the streets in the Juban, we noticed some men were putting a huge bamboo sculpture inside an art gallery. It was really interesting. We had a really fun time coming back to school because, while we were exploring the bumpy pathways in Azabu Juban and a few stores, the weather changed and within a few minutes it started to pour with rain. You can imagine what happened to us on our way back to school. We were quite wet and Shelley was waiting with a hairdryer to dry our hair and Hisami and Liezel helped us change.

Kai read a story to us, while our friends were changing and having their hair dried. The story was called “The Napping House”. It’s a fun story about family and being cosy together in a house. A grandma, a child, a dog, a cat, a flea and a mouse, were the characters in the story.

 Decorating our wreaths took a while.

Antoine said: “The string is getting short”.

Liezel asked Taisei: “Do you know what we are making?”

Taisei said: “This is a circle and I want to put lots of shiny string around it”.

Sarah: “I like to put something yellow around it.

When Momo sat with Shelley decorating his wreath, they both said “in” and “out” as he wrapped the shiny yarn around the dried sweet potato vine. We took a lot of sweet potato vines from Ito’s farm and wanted to recycle them for something. In the end our teachers felt that it would be a good idea to make wreaths. We made many circles which we will use as wreaths for Christmas. People hang wreaths on their front door when it is Christmas and we are going to be making our own unique decorations to personalize ours.

Painting is one of the things we love to do and today we did a different form of painting. It is called marbling. We put marbles inside the paint and a piece of paper inside a box. We put the marble with paint on the paper and moved the box up and down, left and right while the marble rolled around and made patterns on the paper. We used gold, silver and white paint for marbling. We actually did the marbling onto of another painting that we made last week, using beautiful bright colours. The effect is very artistic. A surprise will come later this term with this painting!

Stay dry on this rainy day!

XOXOXOXOX

Flowers Class children