First Day of School in 2023!

Since it is our first day back from the winter holidays, we had a “relaxed” school day to guide us into easing back into school routine and to welcome our new friend, M. Our teachers prepared for us activities that are open ended to prompt us to share how we are and our experiences during the holidays. It was also lovely to meet our new teacher Rebecca (we can sometimes also call her “Kiki” if we found her name too long).

Free Drawing / Scribbling Activity

A simple set up of crayons and papers laid out on a table opened doors to a lot of possible topics and interactions. For instance, this station activity led K to interact with our new member M. K seemed to have seen herself in M as she too started as small as her. It was wonderful to witness K to be the one to take the initiative in offering M crayons to hold and scribble with to make her feel welcomed.

Erika was in this station demonstrating the many different ways we could scribble. She said, “round and round and round” while making spiral like doodles which seemed to have a calming effect for M. We also learned to draw “zig zag - zig zag- zig zag” as well!

G asked for blue colored crayons and drew lines and circles. She shared with Rebecca that what she drew reminded her of the blue ocean… which may have reminded her of her family’s favorite place in Hawaii.

Constructing Railways

Trains and moving vehicles will always be one of the most well loved themes that we enjoy. In congruence with our theme “Transporting Around the Globe” , we started off by exploring how trains and vehicles work. W, S, and J made an intricate railway system complete with stops for it to refuel gas and stopovers for passengers to hop on. J and W explanations were packed with details that our teachers encouraged them to share with their peers.

Circle Time

To start off our Circle Time, we were all given a pair of ribbon bracelets to use for dancing. G thought of the idea of wearing it around her ankles to which everyone followed afterwards. Wearing the ribbons around our ankles “felt different” compared to wearing it around our wrists.

Having it around our ankles means we need to be extra mindful while moving around as we might step on one another’s ribbon. For our musical movement session, we pretended to be vehicles going around a rotonda. We had to pull the brake to stop, turn the engine on to move, step on the gas to go faster, and pull back to move backwards. The music session was a way for us to practice our listening comprehension.

After the musical drive around the rotonda, we all sat down to talk about the holidays and the new year. A colorful artwork was left by our former Buds Class members E, K, J, and L to wish us a wonderful start for the year 2023 which sparked the conversation of fireworks lighting up the dark sky in some countries to welcome the coming of the new year.

G mentioned that fireworks can be quite loud sometimes to which W added that he sometimes feels scared hearing the loud sound it makes. Upon hearing “night sky”, W shared that he saw a big full moon recently. J remembered seeing a moon in one of the books in the library. He pulled out “Ten Little Night Stars” by Deb Gruelle!

We ended our Circle Time discussion by singing/reading the book “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” by Kadir Nelson.

Out to the Pond

For our outdoor period, we headed out to the pond to greet the fishes a happy new year. Yet upon reaching, the pond was mostly covered with dried leaves that made us unsure if there were any fishes in it. Instead we engaged in an imaginative play by pretending that jellyfishes and other sea creatures were under water.

One of the tree’s branches was hanging low that made it accessible for us to reach it. We took turns in trying to reach one of its branches. Whenever we would reach the branches with our hands, dried leaves would fall on us which made us feel like we were having a shower!

It was a wonderful first day back to school and we look forward to school and we look forward to welcoming back more friends tomorrow.

Love,

Buds Class Children