Police officers and hot air balloons

This morning on the table we completed Jeremy, Jessica, Marc and Riko’s hand prints for the 7-5-3 Japanese celebration day. We used the white paint and put our hands onto the sponge soaked with the paint. We then counted to ten and lifted them off to see the wonderful hand prints. We then added origami turtles which we made and the bags are now finished. On the balcony we saw that the pumpkin seeds we planted 2 weeks ago have grown so much. They are all about 10 centimeters high now. We got the watering can and some pots as the soil looked a bit dry and gave them all a nice drink. We also noticed how the seed pods on many of the sprouts were sitting at the top of the leaves and so we put them back in the bottom of the pots. On the carpet area we played with lots of animal counters and colored cups. This was fun as we needed to sort them by color but they wouldn’t all fit in the tiny cups. On the main table Olivia chose 6 junk art wheels to put on her steam train she started last week. We then found some cotton stuffing that looked just like steam and Ava, Jennifer and Olivia all glued this to the tops of their trains. We packed away quickly today and went to the park so that we would have time to play before our Monday exercise session. It was beautiful weather and we took along some park trucks and the ‘elephant’s feet’ balancing toys. When we got back it was time to start our session with Tanaka Sensei. We began with our usual “Ohaiyo Gozaimasu” and our warm up stretches and exercises. We did lots of jumps, squats and leg stretches before doing some balance work on 1 leg and then on our bottoms. Moving onto the bridge pose we all soon realized just how hard this is but when we looked at Nile she had managed to do it so well. Her feet and hands were nearly together under her. Well done Nile!! We then got moving and jumped like bunny rabbits, walked like bears on all fours and then crawled like a crocodile. Then Tanaka Sensei put out some mats on the floor and we practiced doing front rolls. We needed to be careful and have the teachers help so that we didn’t hurt our necks. We each did 4 rolls which was lots of fun and at the end of each roll we needed to get up onto our feet as quickly as possible. In circle time we talked about the police officer visiting tomorrow. We don’t know that much about police officers in Japan and so we together read a book titled ‘Police Officer’ which told us about how they need to wear warm jackets in the winter, use lots of equipment, and get around by car, motorbike, bicycle, helicopter and in some places by horse. Looking at some pictures we soon realized that they were all hot air balloons which were highly colored and some of them looked like animals such as owls, and others looked like rainbows, spongebob squarepants and Lego. Hanging from the bottom of each balloon was a basket with people in them. We then moved to the table to start making our own basket. We got some markers and colored paper to decorate our baskets which are made from paper cups. We didn’t have much time on this and so we will work on them more tomorrow. Have a great afternoon.