Get your passports! We're off to Hong Kong!

It was another beautiful day at Ohana! We started our morning doing lots of fun crafts! At one table we used water color to paint plates for the body of our sea creatures. Tomorrow we will use our marker and scissors to make the fins and the face. At the other table we drew more marine friends to stick on our Ocean Art. We played with the memory matching game, dinosaur toys, and the alphabet magnets until it was time to pack away. Our free play time today was a little shorter than usual because we were going to have our first International Month presentation!

We grabbed our passports we made and we lined up. C taught Nimo how to say, “hello” in Chinese, then Nimo pretended to be a worker at the Hong Kong airport and checked our passports then gave us a stamp. We sat down in front of the computer and welcomed CW for a tour of Hong Kong! We learned a lot about the past of Hong Kong! People from England used to live in Hong Kong, that’s why in Hong Kong there is a beautiful mix of culture! CW introduced some cool places we could go to if we ever get to visit Hong Kong, Ocean Park, Disneyland, and yummy dim sum restaurants! We also had a fun quiz game along the way! CW taught us about one of Hong Kong’s biggest celebration, the Chinese New Year. We watched a story of how the Chinese New Year started. A long time ago there was a big scary monster that kept being mean to the people of the village once an year. One day, a wise man said, “The monster does not like loud noises and the color red.”. The next year when the monster came to be mean again, the people of the village were ready with red dresses, drums for music, and firecrackers to make more noise. The plan worked and the monster ran away and never came back. Since then, people in China celebrate Chinese New Year with lots of music, fireworks, red, and yummy food! CW told us they do it to scare off the monster and bring in good luck. Hmm, sounds very familiar! Another way people call in good luck is by writing a wish on a Joss then throwing it on a tree.

Nimo asked us what we would like to do if we went to Hong Kong:

D: I will play!

C: I want to go to Ocean Park!

B: Go and visit Panda Bears!

Z: I don’t want the Joss falling off of the trees and hitting my head. Other people might get hurt.

K: In Kyoto, I saw A Joss Wish.

We thanked CW for the amazing presentation and then did a special craft that she prepared! We decorated our red banners of Good Health and Good Wealth and hung them up on our walls!

After our craft we played at Step Park and when we got back we started by reading a story. Today we read, “Somebody Swallowed Stanley” by Sarah Roberts and Hannah Peck. The story was about a colorful and unique “jellyfish” named Stanley. Stanley floated about in the huge ocean and there were many animals that came to try and eat him, but every time the animals tried they started to choke. Turns out Stanley wasn’t a jellyfish and was actually a plastic bag. At the end of the book a kind boy was able to rescue a choking turtle and the boy turned the plastic bag into a kite. We know how bad choking can be and what it can do to us. We were also aware that not all turtles are as lucky as the one we saw in the book…

On a small table Nimo showed us a laptop computer.

K: I have 4 of those at home. And an Ipad.

C: I have 5.

D: Mine is a lot bigger.

Over the past few days we used the tools in our tool box to take apart the laptop. When we laid out all the parts we took out we noticed there were a ton of parts inside.

C: (If they go into the ocean) The animals will try and eat the plastic and metal.

K: The metal will scratch and choke and the animal will immediately die…

Z: The animal will get an ouchie in their neck.

Just like Stanley, if this ends up in the ocean animals will be in danger. What can we do?

K: At my Chiba house, there is lots of gomi. Mommy picks them up.

B: We can catch all the fish and then put them into homes.

C: We can use a net to get all the rubbish so that turtles and sharks won’t eat them.

Z: We don’t need to dive into the ocean, we can just use the net.

K: We will need a big net!

T: We can use this net! *shows the class a picture of a large net in a different book*.

Our homework for today was to think of ways to reuse or recycle metal trash.

For our fourth day of Teacher Appreciation Week, we brought our teachers pens and pencils! Our teachers write a lot so these will make sure they don’t run out!

Have a lovely evening everyone and see you on Fantastic Friday!

Love,

Flowers