We finished our pinatas!!

This morning we again welcomed Chiharu to the classroom to make the piñatas for our flowers class as well as a piñata each for petals and buds classes. The balloons we covered with newspaper last Friday had nearly dried and we just needed to decorate them. We enjoyed helping Chiharu glue on the large orange flowers with a glue gun and had to be a little careful as it is hot. When all the flowers were attached we all gathered around the table to fill them with lots of goodies. We all have to keep their contents secret. We will give the piñatas to our friends on Thursday. It was a big job making and decorating the piñatas and wanted to thank Chiharu for all her hard work on these. They look wonderful, thank you. On the carpet the colored Montessori toys were very popular and we managed to organize all the colored pieces into their correct shade. It took a little while but we managed it successfully. On the table the wooden blocks and cards were also popular and we managed to complete many of the cards. We took our snack with us to the park today and sat in the warm sunshine eating. It was really nice there and we saw that because of the rain last night there were a couple of small puddles. We love puddles and soon had muddy water all over our hands. Eito made a small volcano with it and Jennifer told us it was nice warm water where she was playing and so we guessed it must have been in the sun for a while. When we came back from the park it was time for our weekly Japanese fitness program with Tanaka Sensei. Today we had a lot of fun warming up with our usual jumping, squatting and leg stretches. We then did some balance work using 1 leg and our table and bridge poses. We are getting so much better at this and could even do the table using only 1 hand. Next, we played a game where Tanaka Sensei gave instructions in Japanese such as walk (where we walked around) Wall,(we then all rushed to touch the wall), and finally Tree ( we all posed on 1 leg with our arms up like a tree). We then tried some further movement activities where we hopped like a rabbit and a frog, crawled like a crocodile and even found a partner to hug like a koala. We really enjoyed the next activity involving the floor cushions. We had to run in and out of the cones, then hop, then scramble on all fours. After we completed our fitness we talked a little about the Halloween coming soon. We brought the big pumpkin which we will make into a ‘Jack-O-Lantern’ tomorrow. We explained that it would be unfair for one person to choose what shape eyes, nose and mouth the Jack-O-Lantern should have. We then heard about something called a vote. We all looked at some shapes on the floor such as a triangle, a square, a circle and an arch and each of us got to say which shape eyes and nose we would like to carve on the pumpkin tomorrow. We decided on triangles for the eyes, an arch for the nose and a scary mouth and will start to crave it in the morning. Coming to the table we saw lots of Halloween decoration such as a spider streamer decoration, 2 skeletons, some large white sheeting, a dark net piece of material and a paper star. These are going to be put up in the classroom tomorrow or the day after we hope. Have a great afternoon. All our love, Darren, Ayaka and Nanako