We love you

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone. Today was such a full day of people and celebrations in our room and of course, wishing our friends and teachers Happy Valentine’s Day. Griffin and Maddy were really kind and made all of us something that they gave us just before lunch. Griffin spent two or three days drawing cards for us with our names on them together with a sticker and writing. He took a lot of trouble to do this for us and we were surprised by his exceptional kindness. Maddy too prepared something for us. She gave us a heart card with our names on and a bag with a present. Thank you so much Griffin and Maddy for your special Valentine’s Day kindness. We love you!

Our teachers also received something sweet and delicious from Griffin and Io. Just like the words of our song:

“Love is something if you give it away……….. It will come right back to you!”

Today was a day that was filled with mixed emotions. We had a farewell party for Taiyo. We have many feelings when we say goodbye to our friends. We have sad feelings as they are leaving us, and we are happy for them, because they are moving on to new things and it is the continuation of their life’s journey. Many of us have known Taiyo for a very long time and have seen him achieve great strides. We wish him well in this new chapter in his life and as Meg said again today: “Maybe he can come back and visit us.”

We sang songs together with his mum Naoko, his brother Kaito and his sister, Sola. Naoko brought along some delicious fruit kebabs for us to have for dessert after lunch. They were do delicious! We sang “When you’re happy and you know it” and “Love is something if you give it away”. We presented Taiyo with a placemat with all our faces on it, together with some messages. We hope that he will remember us all when he uses his placemat. We will always remember him and he has a place in all of our hearts. Some of us wanted to hug him and express our thoughts to him, at the end of the party. We also commented on the things that we know he can do. This is what we said:

Miles: He can come and visit

Shelley: Do you know how old Taiyo is?

Some children: Seven

Shelley: The number seven is a number that we sometimes sing about.

Meg: Seven days in a week

Junto: Yes, to day is Whacky Wednesday

Miles: He can put his placemat away

Ethan: He can paint

Yurika: He can cut

Shelley: He wears undies and no diapers

Meg: Ben wears diapers in the night so when he’s sleeping, he won’t pee in his undies

Mirai: I’ll miss you

Alona: I will miss you

Dev: Have a good business

Charlie: I’ll miss you Taiyo

Meg: Have a good time

Riou: I love you

Griffin: Have fun

Ethan: I’ll miss you Taiyo

We love you Taiyo and while we wish you were not leaving, we are happy for you.

Today, was teachers swop day and Nimo came to Flowers Class, Liezel went down to Petals Class and Pernille went down to Buds. It was great to welcome Nimo to our class and enjoy his bubbly personality, smiling face and special skills with children. We were so lucky because he brought along his  violin and played it for us. He played “Twinkle, twinkle little star” and the song from “Moana”. He played the violin in such a way that it spoke to us. We felt as if the sound was telling us to stand up, but it stopped and we fell down on the ground. It happened so many times. We laughed a lot. It is hard for us to explain what the sounds did. We hope that you understand what we are saying here. We also moved our bodies while Nimo played the violin and when he stopped playing, we had to sit down as quickly as can be. This was similar to musical bumps or musical chairs.

Today we had to do so many things within a short space of time and our teachers were worried that they wouldn't be ready in time, for everything. We surprised them and were ready and on time for all our 

commitments today. We even had time for our “water the plants” leaders to go upstairs to the deck and water the small hanging plants. We know that they believe in us and give us lofty goals to achieve; and we always rise to the occasion.

We are still not finished telling you what we did today. Nimo was sitting with us, helping us follow the guidelines from Jotaro’s Show and Tell, how to make a “kabuto” and he noticed that there was a bug on his finger. Can you see the bug through the magnifying glass. We could. It looked much bigger when we looked at it through the magnifying glass. Nimo helped us fold the origami paper so we could make our own small “kabuto”. Kai sat with us and helped us write the Chinese characters for . Some of us wrote the “kanji” using special paint brushes and black “shuji” ink, which was what we used when it was Japanese New Year. Outside the door of our classroom there are two long red pieces of paper with Chinese characters on them. The one on the left of the door means “may peace be with you” and the one on the right means “good fortune”. We also wrote “spring” or “good luck” in Chinese characters, on the front of our “hong bao”. “Hong bao” are the lucky envelopes that are filled with money, for Chinese New Year. We made our own “hong bao”.

Tomorrow should be a quieter day and then again, on Friday, the energy will increase as Kai teaches us all about Chinese New Year, in Taiwan.

Thanks for a great day in Flowers Class and thank you Naoko for the delicious fruit and flowers for our teachers.

Love from all the children in Flowers Class.