Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! 2020 has flashed by and now it’s 2021! Excited about the new things that this year will bring, we greeted all of our friends and teachers with a lively, “Happy New Year!” Although it has been two weeks and a half out of school, we all remembered our morning routines perfectly and finished our morning jobs. In Japan people do a thing called, “書初め(Kakizome)” which means, “first writing”.  Our first writing this year was 牛年 (year of the cow) because the animal on the Eto this year is the cow. Our teachers set up a station for us with an example for us to refer to. The rest was up to us to write the kanji on our own. We all attempted our first kanji of the year in our own unique way. We had another table with a blank sheet of paper to draw what we did on our holidays. It seems like everyone had a lovely winter break!

Before we had our snacks, our teachers had an important announcement to make. We have a new friend joining flowers class for the second term! We sang our “Hello Song” and our new friend introduced herself singing, “My name is Aa”. Everyone was thrilled to have Aa join us in Flowers and throughout the day everyone were so eager to help Aa get used to our classroom. After everyone introduced themselves to Aa we went and had our snacks before we headed to the park. At the park we played tag with our friends as usual and we were so happy Aa was able to join us! At first, she stood back and watched how we played, but after a short while, she joined us to play “Toilet Tag”. Toilet Tag is a new game that A taught us. When you get tagged in this game you get down on your knees and put your hand out in front of you. If someone comes and pushes your hand down like the flushing lever on the toilet, we could stand up and run again! Nimo was the tagger, and we had to run away. Nimo was quick and tagged a lot of us out, but we had super teamwork and we would fly to the rescue if anyone got tagged!

We got back to school and we did our Question of the Day, which was, “Did you have a fun Winter Break?”.

Nimo: What is a break?

K: To take a break and rest

Nimo told us he spent his winter holiday making a traditional New Year feast called an Osechi! He then called us one by one to talk about what we did.

A: I’m at home all the time.

Y: I played with my tennis friend, went skating, skateboarding, and Santa came. I did Shuji (calligraphy) with my grandma, she is very good, she is sensei.

A: Oh! Me too! My grandma is Shuji teacher. One time she come to Ohana and do Shuji in Petals.

L: I went to grandma and grandpa’s house and I eat lots of curry. I played “Ninja” with my brother!

C: I went to Shibakouen, I saw many Christmas lights, the tree was twinkling. There’s lots of shops and places we could play!

M: Oshougatsu, I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and I get Otoshidama.

K: In New Year, I got from grandma and grandpa, and relatives, otoshidama! We eat breakfast and dinner, but no lunch or snack! I ate Osechi too!

Aa: I played with papa, we played marble and beedama. I play with mama too!
Ke: I went to Chiba house and did party and eat something… I don’t remember what… I played with friends in their house!

Ky: I was in Tokyo and played lego with daddy. Santa come and I got a purple shirt!

Ke: No! Ky get Harry Potter shirt!

Kn: Santa came to give presents, he give me toys!

Kj: Santa came, I got a sword. A little sword.

T: Santa came and gave me a big car and legos. I played with mom and dad!

We were so happy to see everyone again and play together! Stay warm everyone and see you all again tomorrow!

Love,

Flowers