Exercises in action
Our Monday mornings are really busy as we prepare for our gymnastics classes with Tanaka sensei. We prepare our classroom early so that our friends in Buds Class can use it for their lesson and while they are in our classroom, we go downstairs and have snack in their classroom. 
Today, after our snack time, we sat in their library and read books together with our teachers and friends.
When we came back upstairs, we packed our snack boxes away and got ready for our gymnastics lesson. We follow Tanaka sensei’s instructions really carefully and he guides us by example; which really helps us, especially those of us who do not speak Japanese. We started 
off with our warm up session and some of the exercises that we did were moving around on the floor like a bear, rabbit, frog and crocodile. Then we made our bodies like a table and tried to lift one hand up; then we did the same with one leg up. These ones were a bit challenging. We also tried to balance on one foot. Once again, we practiced doing somersaults on the mats. We now know how to position ourselves carefully so that we execute the somersaults well. Today when we completed doing our somersaults we had to walk like a bear either back to the line or to sit on 
the floor with our legs up in the “taeso suwari” position. Walking like a bear means that you walk on all fours.
We played a ninja game where we had to pretend to be ninjas. We walked on our tip toes quietly and when Tanaka sensei blew his whistle, we curled up like a rock or we stood tall and still like a tree. A rock in Japanese is “ishi” and a tree is “ki”.
The last game was the “train game” and “make a circle like a 
doughnut” game. This was actually one game. We moved around the room and when tanaka sensei said “doughnut” we all held hands in a circle shape because a doughnut is usually a circle shape. If Tanaka sensei said “densha” then we knew that we had to make a train. First we just found a partner so we made a short train with just two carriages. The person at the back put their hands on the person in fronts’ shoulders and we moved around the room together like a train. Afterwards we had to make a longer train, with four carriages. Then 
we had to find three friends to stand with and do the same. This was a long train!
At the activity tables today, Michaela made a doctor with a pink shirt and white coat. She added the stethoscope too as well as facial features etc. Many of us have not yet completed our people so we will continue to work on them over the next few weeks. Tomorrow we are walking up to the fire station on Terebi Asahi Dori which we are excited about. We will be seeing Fire Officers and Fire Trucks when 
we go there and maybe some other interesting things.
Koh chan had “Show and Tell” today and he brought along an amazing book. It was called ‘Koh’s ABC” and in it were all the letters of the alphabet with pictures and stickers on each page. On the page with the letter “V” there were vegetables, Vincent and a volcano; on the page with the letter “W” was a watch, William L, Woody from “Toy Story” and a whale. We asked him where he bought the book but he told us that his dad had made it for him. Wow! We loved the book and 
Koh chan told us so many things about the pictures and when he realized that we liked the book he asked us: “Do you like the book?” and of course we all said: “Yes”. He was really excited to show it to us.
After all the busy things we did this morning as part of our day, we went to the park. It was really cold in the park but we ran around and made our bodies warm, going up and down the slide etc. We hope that Shelley’s tooth will stop hurting her after she has been to the dentist today. She looked really sad!
Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel.