PARTIES AND FAREWELLS

As we come closer to the end of the year, we will have to say goodbye to many friends. These are bitter sweet moments for us in Petals class….

We arrived this morning ready for the day. We had playdough and our dentist’s sets out for children to play with. It was a very popular activity! Children sat down with each other to take turns “drilling” into the playdough teeth. Some of us even shared our personal stories with the dentist:

Ro: I go one time for check up and I have good teeth.

Ms: I had good teeth too, but one is not...look (pointing it out).

Yu: I don’t like to see dentist. I think little bit scary.

Ch: See I don’t have teeth here!

Rl: I don’t think I go before…

Lo: I go and he checking (doing the action for checking teeth).

Kiki: I was so scared to go to dentist...what if dentist say my teeth is not clean?! I would be so embarrassed. And what if it is ouch?

Ra: This one (pointing to his teeth) was ouchy for me too. But Afterwards no ouchy. At first yes ouchy but afterwards ouchy will go away.

At the carpet area we played with cars and had some quiet book time with each other. Children made a fort out of pillows, and pretended it was their house/school. The cars would drop them off at their house/school and then come back to collect them.

After our morning fun, Kiki sat down with everyone to explain the busy day ahead. She said it was a day of parties! Petals class was very surprised to hear this. Kiki further explained that the morning starts with celebrating our teachers’ birthday. We will head down stairs for John, Liezel, Chiaki, Goh-san and shhhhh...Pauline’s birthday! After that we have another birthday party with our class friends. But we will also be saying our goodbyes to one friends in particular, as today would be her last day in Ohana and Petals class.

With this we all headed downstairs to buds class.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAULINE, LIEZEL, CHIAKI, GOH-SAN AND JOHN-JOHN!!

Once we came back to our class, we had our snacks and Kiki did a quick Japanese story time, with the help of Sayaka’s. Kiki did a dramatic story time of the Japanese folktale called, “Omusubi Kororin(The Rolling Riceball).” The story goes as such:

“One day an elderly man was eating a lunch, that his wife had prepared for him, at the top of a hill. In the lunch were some rice balls. The man accidentally dropped one of these rice balls and it rolled down the hill and fell into a hole. The man goes to see where his rice ball has gone and when he arrives at the hole he hears singing from inside. The man tries to get closer to the hole in order to better hear the singing and ends up falling in. Once in the hole the man sees many mice all around him that begin to thank him for the food that he has just provided. The mice are in such gratitude that they prepare the man a feast. Then, as the man is about to leave, the mice offer him a souvenir. They say “you can either choose the small box or the large box” and the man chooses the small box. The man then goes back to his house, opens the box, and discovers that there are many treasures inside (money, gold, jewelry). Being a very benevolent man he spreads the wealth around the whole town.

Now the man next door old grandpa hears this story and becomes jealous. He decides to imitate the actions of the old man so he brings rice balls to the same hill, shoves the rice balls down the same hole, and crawls into this hole. The mice are again thankful for the rice and  make the man a feast. At the end of the feast the man asks for his souvenirs and imitates a cat in order to scare the mice. The mice become furious and they called on their magic to disappear, and only leaving behind a dark empty whole, with no way out.  The old grandpa got stuck in the dark hole forever, for his greed.”

Petals class loved this story and Rico kindly even sang the song from the story.

After our story we say Benjamin and his mother come into class. We sat down and got ready for our second Birthday party for the day!
We “dressed” up our birthday friends and sang songs to them. We also played pin the tail on the donkey, thanks to Sunny (Benjamin’s mom).

After our games, we sat down at the table and had popsicles and chocolate cupcakes as our birthday treats. Everyone loved this special treat and were so happy! Thank you friends for sharing your special day with us!

A special best of luck to our friends, in her new school. We hope you will have an amazing time and please do come and visit us!

We had a day of celebration with friends and teachers!

Have lovely evening and see you all tomorrow!

Loving Petals