Children's Day in May

Good morning! 

After we cleaned up our what we were playing with, we gathered all together for circle time and we did a very short movement exercise. Sayaka asked us if we can take a guess, what music instrument she was pretending to play. She moved her fingers so fast…”Piano! You playing piano!” C shouted out. Next was…drumming, we also pretended drumming. “Ok, this will be the last one.” As Sayaka said, R raised his hand. “How do you know before I pretend?” R answered, “A guitar?” It made her very surprised because she was going to pretend playing a guitar. “How do you know!” Sayaka smiled and pretended playing a guitar. T added, “I thought..ukulele!” Sayaka nodded her head and said, “Yeah it can be ukulele, too!” It was a simple, but nice activity!

Today’s one of our friends special day. “Who’s birthday today?” Sayaka asked us.
C-I was three, now I’m four *He showed four fingers.
T-I’m four, too.
Sayaka agreed and asked if today’s C’s birthday.
S- *Raised his hand* Me!
C-My next birthday, I am going to be five.
R-When I five, I won’t be at Ohana. I go…*she pointed out outside.
Sayaka-Do you know where you going to?
R-I  Don’ t know school yet..Uh..forgot!
L-Three!
Sayaka-Yes, you are going to be bigger, bigger, and bigger. No more 1…no more two…
C- If you sleep, you grow grow grow!

Today’s circle time was to learn about children’s day. Children’s day used to be called Boy’s day and it is one of the public holidays during golden week. The first thing she showed us was a photo of the koinobori (Carp streamer) “Have you seen Koinobori before?” C opened his eyes and said, “Me!  I saw Koinobori at TAC!” Sayaka added that people display or hang koinobori for that day. It is for wishing a healthy and successful future.

Sayaka wanted to explain that there are daddy koinobori (Big one), mommy koinobori (Midium one), and baby one (Small one) Since we played with hexagon blocks and enjoyed connecting them for our morning free play time. Sayaka saved some of the ones we made for circle time. Sayaka lined them up in order of size. She asked us who knows which one is the big(Long) one,  R raised her hand. C told us which one was the shortest one. Then J pointed out which one was the medium one. “This is daddy koinobori, this is mommy, and this is baby.” She pointed out one by one.

Sayaka continued introducing the traditional things of children’s day. The next one was samurai helmet and armor. She showed us a picture of it. “We don't have a real one, but I can make one with this!” She showed the newspaper and started making a helmet (Kabuto) with it.
R-It’s like an airplane!
T-Whaaaa! It is a hat.
C_ *He saw that Eito was putting on. It looks like pirate.
T-I can fight oni!

“Da-da!” It looked very nice and we took turns putting it on. As she mentioned earlier, it was boys day before so the helmet and armor were symbols of strength, stamina, and masculinity. 

Then she mentioned that people take a bath in Syoubuyu (Bath in iris). The reason why people use the leaves is to protect from evil sprits. The leaves give a strong smell, people believe that it helps to get rid of the bad sprits. T said, “My mommy told me I have bath with daddy.”

The last one was the traditional food! She showed the photo of Kashiwa mochi (Bean pasted in mochi) and Chimaki (Rice cake wrapped in bamboo leaf). You know what, we might try the piece of Kashiwa mochi tomorrow! We always enjoy doing a tasting activity so we are very excited! Y told us that his mom buys it for Y.

Just before we go to the park, Sayaka asked us Y to take his book which is, “When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really, Angry”…by MOLLY BANG. It was very nice book and we enjoyed it a lot.
C shared his thought-I feel sad when a friend take my toy without asking.
J-Angry!
Sayaka suggested that when we feel angry and need to calm down, we can go to our balcony and take a deep breath and when we are ready, we can come back, like Sophie in the book. 

At the park, there were buds and flowers friends and we enjoyed “Ohana” park time.

Oh, we had a wonderful time during free play time, too!

Thank you very much and see you all tomorrow!

Love,

Petals