Japanese Story Time!

Say cheeeeeese! “Are you happy being in petals class?” Pauline asked us. We said, “Yeeeeeessss!” and had big smiles on our faces. We did a great job for our photo day!



Good morning Petals! We greeted each other and started our day. Today some of us dressed up very formal. OH YES... today is our photo day! We put Ohana shirts on and enjoyed a short morning free play time. After cleaning up, Kiki talked about today’s photoshoot. After listening we were ready for it so we went to the office and showed “OUR TEETH” and smiled to the camera. Mommies and daddies don’t worry about it, we smiled for yearbook beautifully.

We went back to petals and had snack time. Today’s snack time was very funny because we didn't use our chairs! Some of our chairs were at the office for the photo day. Therefore, we didn't have enough chairs in class to sit on. We loooved NO chair snack time! We hope that we will do no chair snack time again soon.

Kiki then read a book about Ella Fitzgerald, form our “Little people, Big Dreams “book collection. This inspiring and informative little biography follows the inspirational life of the First Lady of Song, from her early singing days on the streets of Harlem, to her success as a jazz legend, with the message: 'It's not where you come from, but where you're going that counts.' With stylish and quirky illustrations and a facts and photo section at the back, this empowering series celebrates the important life stories of wonderful women of the world.  Kiki then showed them old videos and beautiful songs of Ella Fitzgerald. The children did agree that her voice was very special and quite relaxing to hear. It was also a great step into the world of jazz. Thank you Kiki...We loved it!

Next it was Sayaka’s circle time. Today, she did a Japanese apron theater. She said the story is part of a collection of traditional Japanese stories.

The story is as follows:

The Man Who Made Flowers-HANASAKA JIISAN

One day, in the mountains there lived a grandpa, grandma, and the dog named Shiro. One day when the Grandpa went into the field with Shiro, Shiro suddenly started barking and barking at the ground. Shiro was actually telling him to dig the ground where Shiro was barking at. As the grandpa began to dig, sparkling gold coins came out from the ground. But then in the back a greedy old man was looking at Shiro and the grandpa digging the gold coins.

Then the greedy old man came up to the grandpa and suddenly carried Shiro away. He forced Shiro to take him to the mountains He said to Shiro, “Where is the gold!” so Shiro barked at the floor. And when the greedy old man started digging the ground, instead of golden coins, there came out a huge amount of garbage. Then the greedy old man got very angry, “What a useless dog!!”  He started hitting Shiro with a stick and killed him.

When the Grandma and Grandpa heard about this, their hearts were filled with grief. Then they decided to make a grave for Shiro. A few days later, there is a big tree came from a grave for Shiro. He was thankful for the tree and thought it’s a gift from Shiro...

Then the greedy man came to them AGAIN!! He just cut the tree and even thought burnt it and into ashes. The nice grandpa was so sad. But a strong wind blew up and sent the ash flying and presently it landed on a dead tree. Then what do you think happened? The sakura flowers bloomed all over the tree! they are so beautiful Sakura flower. The dead tree suddenly burst out in full bloom and came back life. The granpa is very happy to see them and it reminds of Shiro somehow. The king of the village heard about the happened and came to see the Sakura. The nice granpa is happily share the Sakura with him.

But, the greedy old mad had been watching again. He told the king, “Excuse me! May I tell you this….? I will also make the flowers bloom! Here you go!” He grabbed the ash from the nice granpa and tried to make it fly.. But then, the ashes flew into the kings eyes and nose and mouth. It made the king so upset and he asked him go home. The king invited the nice granpa back to the castle and he received a lot of treasures and tokens as a sign of gratitude. The nice old grandpa lived happily ever after. The END.

At the end our teachers added the final moral of the story: “If we make a good choices good things will happen to us, but if you make bad choices, bad things will happen to you (KARMA).” Wow what a great moral to remember.

 After that, Sayaka asked if we would like to have a long free play time before lunch. As you can imagine everyone said, “YES!” Though our morning circle time was short today, we had a loonnnnggg free play time after. We had so much fun playing with the Legos and our Dinosaur toys!

Thank you very much for today!

Have a wonderful evening and see you all next week!

Love,

 Happy smiles from ALL PETALS