Monday gymnastics, every day no plastics

A rainy day means even more fun inside with our friends and teachers and that’s exactly what happened today. We had a wonderful story which Shelley read twice, due to the fact that we are divided into two groups on a Monday. One group does gymnastics with Tsurumi sensei and the other has a lesson with our teachers; and then the groups swap over. The story was in the theme of Diversity which is the new word that we learned recently. We like the word a lot as it has a musical quality to it and it brings awareness to us about ourselves; who we are; how we look; what language we speak; how beautiful we are in our difference. We know that it is important to cherish who we are, and celebrate our sameness and difference that we bring to our families, our class and our Ohana community.

The story was called “The Name Jar”. It is a story about a girl who leaves Korea with her family and goes to live in America. She is embarrassed by her name because she was teased by some children, about it. When she learns it’s meaning, she finally accepts it and what helps her in her transition to acceptance, is that there is a Korean supermarket in her neighbourhood with a lovely man, who was the person who helped her love her name and appreciate it. He told her that her name means “grace”.

Of course, the story provoked our thinking and we had an interesting conversation that went like this:

Shelley: When Yoon-hye was going to school in the bus, she felt both nervous and excited. Perhaps how some of you may feel when you start your new school.

Jamie: One time, I went to Nishimachi. I was so scared.

Ai: When I was going to go to Nishimachi, I was excited and a little nervous.

Shelley: Do you know what your name means?

Ai: Love

Jamie: Hulme

Rafael: I don’t know

Antoine: My mom didn’t ask me so I don’t know

Kano: I don’t know

Ryoma: I don’t know

Lisa: I have a grandma and she calls me Lily. In Petals class there is a friend called Lily

Kensei: My daddy’s friend calls Kensei “shatcho”

Sara: My name means princess. It’s just in my mommy’s feelings. She just calls me like that.

William: I don’t know

Sota: Maybe I’m not sure but my mommy and daddy knows.

WHAT DOES MY NAME MEAN? This is what we are asking our parents in our email. We are asking our parents to please tell us the story of our names as we would love to know why they chose our particular names for us. What an interesting project!

Gymnastics was filled with energy and we did our exercises in two groups, so we had to wait and watch and take turns. We jumped, hopped on our right leg and then our left leg; we ipened our legs and our friends crawled through them and then we ran around our friends. On the mat, we did the spider walk and somersaults.

We practiced our singing for our graduation party and are happy to have our recording playing during the morning so we can hear it while engaged in free play with our friends and teachers. Tomorrow we won’t practice as it’s our PYJAMA PARTY.

We played this really fun memory game and this time, we chose the objects. We looked around our room and worked out if we needed something that we couldn’t reach, that we could stand on a chair. Most of us looked at the containers on the collage shelf and took something out of these plastic containers. We had 13 things that we chose because there were 13 children. Actually, that is not 100% correct. When we started the game, there were 14 of us and suddenly, Shelley saw that there were only 13. How did that magic happen? Some of us were not sure and then Jamie told us that Benjamin left to go home. So we had 13 objects which we had to memorise, as Shelley was going to take one away. We are too good at remembering so she couldn’t trick us. We had so much fun playing this game.

We have been working on many tasks in the classroom and today a few of us were building with Lego. Shelley asked us to perhaps draw a picture of what we had created and to write something

alongside it. Benjamin did it and worked out how to write a sentence explaining what he had made. Some of us were so busy making things with paper and tape e. g. magic wands or an Olympic torch and the rest of us were absorbed in our jigsaw puzzles. We don’t seem to be able to get enough of them.

So, in a nutshell, this was our Monday at Ohana. Our last Monday of the regular school programme and the fun goes on. Thanks for a great day.

Love always, all the children in Flowers Class.