Happy birthday Shelley

Frenetic Friday…..busy as bees Friday……party time Friday…..there are so many names that we could have given to today. We started off our day keeping a really big secret from Shelley……we were going to celebrate her birthday today and she had no idea what we were going to do. She was really busy this morning, as always, because she had a meeting with the office staff and then she met a lady and her son, Aiden. He really liked being in our classroom and he sat in our morning circle listening to Hisami and Liezel, as we sang and learnt something new about ‘hand washing’ with our friends. Hisami brought a bucket to the carpet, a jug of water, some soap and a towel. We all demonstrated together with her, how to wash our hands and then we went to the bathroom and used the water from the tap and washed them really carefully. Sometimes when we wash our hands we sing:“Wash, wash, wash, your hands, wash your hands today, if you want to wash your hands, wash your hands this way”.

Sometimes when we wash our hands, we cannot make them properly clean because the paint takes a long time to come off. This happened when we were doing our fingerprints yesterday. The ink from the stamp pads was on our finger tips for the entire day and only came off just before we went to bed.

Hisami taught us that we only need to push the soap down one time and then we spread the soap all over our hands and wrist and then we rinse the soap off under the tap. As we were getting ready to go and wash our hands for snack time, our friends from Flowers Class and Buds Class, came into our room. Luckily Shelley wasn’t there so she couldn’t see what we were doing. We were preparing for Shelley’s birthday party. She is having her real birthday on Sunday but we don’t go to school on a Sunday, so we thought it would be good to do it before the actual day. Eventually she walked into the classroom hiding behind a sun hat; and then she saw the entire student population of Ohana’s regular school programme, sitting on the carpet. We of course sang “When you’re happy and you know it” and “Happy birthday to you”. We presented her with books and cards that our friends from all of the classes had made, in honour of her special day. Tokutaro put a crown on her head to make her look like a birthday queen, which she did. Many of us had hugs for her and she too had special hugs for us. She didn’t say this to us, but if we had to put a thought bubble above her head, this is what we think, she would have said:

"I am truly amazed at what I am looking at…….an abundance of beautiful children who have chosen to come to Ohana International School……my heart is full….thank you, thank you to everyone for trusting our vision and being a part of the actualization of our dream"

We all know that she is eating really healthily at the moment and at the same time, is encouraging our mums to make sugar free food for us, so we made her a platter out of vegetables and fruit. Can you see what we used to make the platter? Peppers, carrots, cucumbers, grapes, tomatoes and celery! You can see from her face, that she was so happy. Our friends in Flowers Class made her a pretend cake out of paper clay. They made it into the shape of a small cake, painted it pink and added sparkles and a candle to it. Shelley said that she wants to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all the children and teachers for making her feel so special today. She is sure that her real birthday on Sunday will also be a wonderful day. Mayuko, Vincent’s mum brought her a beautiful miniature orchid from our families.

We did many other things during the morning like activities at the tables, circle times, story time and our vey first Show and Tell. Michaela was our first friend to bring her Show and Tell and she chose to bring one of her favourite books, which she read to us. It was called ‘Swamp water” and it was all about a little girl who went to a fancy restaurant with her grandma for her grandma’s birthday. She didn’t want anything on the menu and the waiter was not very obliging. In the end her needs were met and the chef did make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The reason why the book was called ‘Swamp Water” was because when the waiter asked Victoria what she wanted to drink, she said “Swamp Water”. He didn’t know what “Swamp Water” was. It was a combination of chocolate milk, soda and other liquids…….and to many of us, it didn’t sound very nice. But Victoria wanted her favourite foods to be included on the menu at this fancy restaurant. We are not sure if the chef did. We want to wish all of our friends and their families a beautiful weekend and hope that the weather is just as great as it was today. Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel.