We'll get ready for a brand new day

We enjoyed the beautiful weather today and once again enjoyed imaginative play in the park with sand and water. Hisami drew a picture of an oni/monster in the sand and we quickly erased it and were happy that it had disappeared. We also had fun running around and coming down the two slides; the twirly one is more exciting for us however we also enjoy the big one, as it feels a bit scary and some of us like doing scary things.

In the morning, Lilian did her “Show and Tell” and she was sooooo excited. When she arrived at school and came upstairs in the elevator with Shelley, she reminded her about doing her “Show and Tell”; especially since we forgot to do it on Wednesday. She showed us her Queen Pumpkin which she made. She said that she put on the eyes, mouth, nose, ears, jewelry, crown, and hands. She passed the pumpkin around so that we could all look at it closely. We said that it was really heavy and tried to show our friends and teachers that we were strong enough to carry it. Then it was question time and our teachers tried to explain to us that there is a difference between a comment and a question. When we comment, we just make a statement which does not necessarily need a reply. However when we question someone, we are expecting a reply. Alexis asked Lilian: “Where did you get the pumpkin from?” and Lilian answered her in a lot detail: “I got it from a friend’s party and decorated it there and then I took it home”. She also showed us a small sparkly bear that she put into the bag with the pumpkin. We want to thank her for bringing such an appropriate “Show and Tell” especially since Halloween is coming soon.

We heard that our schedule at school is full of activities, for this month and for November. In fact, next week we are all going to the farm in Chiba for “Oimohori”. We will be digging sweet potatoes out of the ground and can’t wait to go on the big bus with our friends, family and teachers. We also have a taiko drumming workshop which our teachers will email you about.

During the morning some of our friends used the camera and took photos in the classroom of things that they wanted to. Most of us used the camera a few weeks ago and our teachers wanted all of us to have a turn. Some of the photos look like there is nothing however there was something, but we had our finger in front of the lens.

During one of our circle times, we spoke about the weather and are now able to work out which day comes next and what number comes next; sometimes we can do this without going through all the days of the week and all of the numbers. Today Lilian knew the day instantly and she knew the number as well. We counted the number of children that were in the class today and there were 10. Shelley then asked us if we have anything on our bodies that matches the number ten. We thought and thought and then “fingers”. We all held up our ten little fingers and then we looked at Alexis’s toes because hers were the only ones that we could see. Why couldn’t we see our toes? Mika said: “Because I am wearing tights”, and the rest of us were wearing socks so our toes were inside our socks and tights. We held up ten fingers and said the poem “These are my ten little fingers”. Then we played a game called “I don’t want to see”. Each time Shelley said: “I don’t want to see your ………” and we hid whatever she didn’t want to see. We hid our eyes behind our hands; we hid our chins under our hands; we turned around and hid our tummies; then we turned around a hid our backs etc. Some of the things we had to hide were a bit tricky. How could we hide our knees and our feet? We sat on our feet and then she couldn’t see them. We laughed a lot when we played this game.

Nina, Lilian, Michaela and Luka made their orange and black collage pictures. Nina drew her mummy and so did Lilian and Michaela. Luka in the end decided that he too wanted to make his mum. They all drew pictures and then they selected various collage materials and added them to their pictures.

These pictures are already inside our portfolios which our teachers will put on display at the Open House this evening.

We started learning how to make bats and cats out of black origami paper. We are going to be making gifts for our friends in Flowers Class because they are making us a Halloween Pinata. The problem was that we wanted to keep the things that we had made and wear them round our necks. Our teachers said that we can keep them and we will make more next week which will be our gifts for them.

Thanks for a fabulous Friday and a busy, busy week at Ohana. We hope that you all have a great weekend.

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel.