Waltz Dance, Austria Day
March 9th, 2018
Dear Parents,
Happy Austria Day. We welcomed Eriko, Li’s mum to celebrate Austria with us today. Li’s daddy Alex is from Austria. We learnt some facts about Austria, played a fun game, danced and then finally ate some yummy Austrian cookies.
Li pointed to where Austria is in the map of the world and Eriko explained that because it’s so far away from Japan, we need to take an airplane to get there. We looked at its flag and noticed that the colors of the Austrian flag are white and red. We thought of many thigs that are red in color. Then Eriko explained that red represents blood because of the many wars that were fought there long time ago. We also saw a slide show and looked at the pictures of people in traditional clothing, typical food that people eat there like Wiener Schnitzel, apple strudel and Sachertorte. We always love to know about the most popular landmarks in a country and Eriko shared that Schonbrunn Palace is very popular in Austria. Then Tem wanted to learn to count 1-10 in Austrian language. Eriko said that people in Austria speak Dutch and so we counted in German eins, zwei, and so on.
Then, we looked at the picture of Mozart, one of the most popular pianist and listened to his compositions. After that we played a game in which we listened to various music pieces and had to guess if it was Mozart’s music. Eriko played drum music from Africa, some tribal music and Beethoven too. We were mostly able to guess Mozart’s music from these.
Finally, Eriko explained that every weekend in March a ball is held in the palace as well as in Opera House, where grownups dance waltz. Then Eriko changed to her white ball gown and we all danced in pairs. After that we tried some Austrian cookies and it was so yummy. It was a really fun experience. Thank you, Eriko and Li for sharing about your culture! We hope you will enjoy your summers there this year!
Today was also a day of amazing discoveries and inventions. Following on from yesterday’s story about ‘Rosie Revere, Engineer’ we enjoyed making our own inventions today. Our teachers suggested we construct boats using junk art materials and tape. Mo was the first one to create his boat with an empty tissue box and cups. He put a bottle cap at the end for ventilations as well. then he sailed his boat and observed that after a few minutes it sink. We noticed that the tissue box was wet and that’s why it sinks.
Tem learnt from Mo’s experience and wanted to make a boat that doesn’t sink. We saw that Em’s boat made of aluminum paper didn’t sink and hence he thought of using the aluminum paper at the bottom part of the boat. Then he added one bottle caps in his boat to make music when he sails. Er loved the idea and used many caps in the boat that she made. Er and Tem’s boat sailed for a long time and then they started pouring water inside the boat and gradually it sank.
Sar had a unique idea and used two old CDs to make her boat. When she sailed it, it sank too. We tried to sail one CD in the water and saw that it gradually went to the bottom of the tub. Pauline remarked that when something is heavier than water then it sinks to the bottom and if it is lighter, then it floats. We want to explore this concept more next week.
It was raining today, and we stayed indoors. We worked on our suitcases with Pernille and did marbling craft with Sayaka. Pauline read to us ‘Snail and the Whale’ as we lay down on the floor and relaxed, while Pernille told us a story about the royal family in Denmark without any book. We had fun making the pictures in our mind as we heard the story because Pernille was so animated as she talked.
We are excited to celebrate Australia Day and U.K Day next week on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.
Have a good weekend!
Love,
Little inventors in Petals Class