International Month and Children's Day

 INTERNATIONAL MONTH CELEBRATION (Beatrice)

  We were so excited to welcome B’s family today. A very big thanks to Grandma Ha, Na, and I who joined us from Japan and Grandma J and Uncle N who joined us from the US. It was a wonderful time of sharing about Be’s heritage, African American, Japanese, Cherokee, and Choctaw.  Be brought posters with lots of beautiful and interesting pictures in it. With some help from her dad, she proudly shared fascinating things about her heritage.

            She had a big picture of the continents of the world and brought out an origami boat to show us how African American people made their way to America. Some people were chained to the boat. Some were able to survive but unfortunately some did not. We also learned some big words! These are activism, innovation, dance (hip hop, jazz, rock and roll.

            Be: Police killed George Floyd. Activism is to make new things and make things better. (Showed us a picture of her joining a march with a poster) We marched to say it was wrong. (The poster said) Yes to justice, yes to peace! Innovation is usually people forget to close the door, so they fall down. So, Alexander Miles changed the system to automatic doors. The elevator. Automatic means you don’t need to touch it. It closes by itself. Sometimes it doesn’t, so you need to push a button.

            She also introduced us to a lady named Catherine Johnson. Be said she helped the people to go to the moon. She did the math and made the path. Catherine Johnson and Alexander Miles were also African American like Be.

            Be’s dad had a picture of him dancing hip hop. Other dances were also pictured such as rock and roll and jazz. D said, “I like rock and roll. I do it in Alaska.

            Thank you so much again for sharing! We love to receive USA flags, too!

 MORNING ACTIVITIES
            For our morning table activities, we decorated a special frame with colorful gems and buttons. This special frame is a gift to someone very special to our hearts! It’s for our MOMS! Please look forward to this gift and we hope that you will like it!

            On another table, we had fun making different patterns using geometric tiles. It was challenging and at the same time fun at finding for the appropriate pattern and color!

            We had lots of fun making houses, buildings, and towers using cork blocks and colorful squares. We discovered how the structure of a building changed by just adding or taking away a few blocks! Next time, we would like to build a whole community!

 CIRCLE TIME

            We have been talking about Children’s Day which is celebrated on May 5th.  We have learned about this special Japanese tradition and made our very own Koinobori (carp fish) crafts. For story time, we read the book, Hooray for You! A Celebration of You-ness by Marianne Richmond. It feels great to be me! We are special in our own ways! Some of us were very eager to share why we think we are special. We are sure that you would be happy to know it, too!

            N: I am special because I have special food. I’m special because I can go somewhere else.

            Z: The special thing about me is I am kind.

            Ti: For me, I am special because I’m going to move somewhere else. Even if I move away, I can still come to Ohana by car because it’s a bit far from here.

            B: I am special because my mom loves me.

            Z: I am happy because I am moving back to Pakistan because I love playing with my cousins. I’ll be in Pakistan for a really long time. I will be in Pakistan, but I will come back so I can all see you again.

            After an amazing sharing time about our “you-ness”, our imagination was sparked by this question: If on Children’s Day, you would be given a chance to do whatever you want, what would it be?

 (Everyone giggled!)

            Y: I will do games.

            T: I want to go to Hokkaido again and pick the beautiful flowers.

            Z: I will play and eat all spicy foods! I will buy presents and get goodies.

            B: I want to be a teacher. I would like to do…. I want to teach everything. I want to teach about weather.

            D: I want to go to Brazil again. I want to surprise them. I want to play with El, Vi my friend, Av my friend. And I want to see my grandma.

            N: I want to go back to Shimoda. I want to play in the sand. I want to row a boat, get into a speedboat. I want to watch and eat, then watch and eat again. There’s a bed that we all fight about because we want to sit on it, but it’s only one. So, on this day, I would like to sleep on that bed!

            H: Ge-mu! I want Ariel game.

 Aww! It would be lovely to have all of these on Children’s Day😊!  For sure, we would have a wonderful Children’s Day with our family and friends! We are looking forward to hearing your fun stories about it!

            Have a wonderful Golden Week!

            See you all on Thursday (May 5th!)

Love,

Flowers XOXO