Strips of Sparkly Paper
Decorating Holiday Cards + Abstract Face Making
Just a few more sleeps and it's already the month of December!
The month of December holds various occasions to commemorate the closing of another year. One of Ohana’s holiday traditions is to decorate and exchange holiday cards with partner schools in different parts of Japan to send our warmest greetings for the holiday season and our thoughts of well wishes for the upcoming new year.
Items in the colors red, green, gold, and silver were laid out on a table for us to decorate the holiday cards that we are going to send out in partnership with OPTO. The holiday card making was a great way to bond with one another as we exchanged ideas on our thoughts about the holidays. Here’s what we did:
K and E’s cards were the most elaborately decorated as both of them preferred having the front cover of their cards covered with stickers, sequins, and strips of gold & silver foil.
K preferred to keep his card simple by opting to stick round shaped golden foil. His thoughtfulness led him to even thinking of feeding toy dinosaurs with shiny sequins to make it look a little less hungry.
L opted to glue on strips of stickers instead of peeling it off one by one! For the strips of golden & silver foil, he opted to glue it one by one as he was trying to form a particular design.
N found it fascinating when strips of paper would get stuck on the glue stick instead of on the paper. This is something that our teachers guided her in figuring out the proper way to use glue in order to decorate her card.
J noticed that his card, hoodie, and choice of stickers all had one thing in common… all of it were in the color RED which he found hilarious. He even pointed out that he might as well be like Santa Claus as they both wear the same color of clothing.
S had a big smile on his face while looking at the card he decorated. He really liked the angel and blue Christmas tree stickers he used for his card.
When most of us were able to decorate our holiday cards, this same station then turned into “Abstract Face Making” together with Seila. Using old painted artworks, we formed Picasso-inspired face art pieces to expose us to the concept that everyone has a unique facial look. It also encouraged us to think out of the box with the unusual combination of lines to form eyes, mouth, and nose that Picasso is well known for. N spent a while doing this activity as Seila engaged him in a conversation while doing it.
Forming Snowflakes
Snowflakes give us a magical and mystical feeling that compliments the season of winter. With our “Sparkly Night” artwork cut into strips of different lengths, we formed our own snowflakes by sticking the strips together. Although we had a snowflake template available to guide us, each of us had our own idea on how a snowflake looks like.
G and K stacked strips of paper which resembled fences. Together with Tamara, they both counted on how many strips of paper they used and shared their thoughts about how to form a snowflake.
W and K preferred forming snowflakes by arranging strips of paper both horizontally and vertically. W found it interesting when at times, his finger would get stuck on the sticky sheet of laminate.
Let’s Bake a Lego Cake and Peek-A-Boo with Shelves
While a few of us were busy decorating holiday cards and forming snowflakes, some of us were occupied with building structures using large sized Lego blocks and going through empty shelves. These activities encourage us to harmoniously interact and collaborate by learning how to take in cues on when to join & play, take turns, and express our ideas through actions & words.
How do you think we did based on the photos?
Circle Time
Before starting our Circle Time, we danced to a medley of “Baby Shark” (Pinkfong & Luis Fonsi), “Conga Line Dance Song” (The Kiboomers), and the catchy “Tequila” (The Champs) wherein each of us were encouraged to bust a move and show everyone our groovy dance.
After dancing, we all settled down to a lullaby version of “Skidimarink” which transitioned us to talk about the starry night sky and the stars that shine bright. Each of us was given a strip of paper and used it as a means to talk about the parts of our face.
With the long strip of paper, we “attached” it to our:
NOSE & EARS and pretended to be elephants
MOUTH and pretended to be frogs
We used the long strip of paper as a bracelet, necklace, ring, and headband. It was a fun experience to roll the strip of paper around our finger and suddenly release it. Erika asked us to fold the strip in half to form a letter “V” and later pasted it together to form a STAR!
Outdoor Play
We were in for a treat as we had the park slide all to ourselves! We climbed up the stairs and slid down to our hearts’ desire which led to us having a hearty lunch and a good long nap.
We hope everyone is having a lovely Tuesday so far!
Love,
Buds Class Children