World Book Day!

Today, we all came into school with our special clothes and our favorite books :)  We had a parade at the temple ground across the street among our Flowers’ and Petals’ friends and teachers!  We also took our snacks and water bottles to the park and had a lovely picnic outside :)  Here is more to our day...

 Morning Activities

 Koinobori Painting

Do you remember what Oscar brought in to the classroom on Wednesday?  He called it “the dragon” and it was a decoration for an upcoming national holiday; what we call the Children’s Day on May 5th.  Prior to this day, we take out a set of dolls called the Gogatsu Ningyo and hang out carp streamers called Koinobori.  The carps represent strong healthy children who can climb up the hardships in life.  Today we started painting the scale patterns using home-made mesh and bubble wrap dabbers -    this way, we could easily enjoy the fun effects without getting too messy especially since we were all in our nice clothes…!

 Ball and Animal Pool

Our water trough was inside the classroom filled with colorful balls and animal figurines!  We loved digging for an animal and making up stories as we added more animals along the way like giraffes, tigers, cats and snakes!

 Parade

Our usual schedule is to have a circle time before snack and then go out to the park but today while we were busy with our free play, the teachers started changing our diapers and shoes!  Nanako quickly assembled us in a circle and explained that we were going to show off ourselves at the temple ground right across from our school.  We held on to our parking rope just like we would to go to the park and walked over to the other side where all of the Flowers’ and Petals’ friends and teachers were waiting including everyone in the office!  Since the big bad germ has been around, it was the first time whole the whole gathered :)  We made sure everyone could see our special clothes as we paraded in a circle, still holding on to our ropes!

Picnic

Since it was another beautiful summerly weather outside, instead of heading back in the classroom, we headed to the park right after the parade with our snacks and water bottles.  Along the way, we sang “We are going to the park.  We are going to have snack!  Everybody, everybody, we are going to the park!”  Indeed, we were getting confused from all the disruption from our routines!  Once we got to the green area, instead of gushing into our play, the teachers took out a bottle of alcohol spray and wipes, to make sure our hands were clean and how we loved sitting in a circle looking at each other as we enjoyed our yummy snacks!  We also had plenty of time running, kicking, throwing, jumping and making trains afterwards :)

Circle Time

Coming back from the park, we enjoyed singing and dancing in our circle.  We wanted to read everyone’s books and there were so many!  We selected two one in Japanese and one in English.  The first book was called Kingyo ga Nigeta by Taro Gomi (K’s choice).  It was a story about a goldfish escaping and we each took a turn to point at the hiding goldfish.  The second book was called Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert (S’s choice).  The story begins with a dad who says “We are going to grow vegetable soup.”  We loved seeing how from seed grew plants and vegetables and we pretended to wash and cut the vegetable to make yummy soup :)  Of course, it was time our tummy was getting hungry and we had lunch!

Thank you for another lovely day!

Love from the children in Buds xoxo