Writing our names
Today we spent the whole day indoors because of the rainy weather. We sang “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring” and “Rain, rain go away”. We learnt “Ame, dear Ame fall from the sky” which is a poem about rain and how the plants, flowers and trees are happy when there is rain as it feeds the soil and they can grow. During music time, we sang and danced to “Heads and Shoulders”; “Five little monkeys”; “The Wheels on the bus”; “Incy Wincy Spider”; “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven”, “Hokey Pokey” and “Under the spreading chestnut tree”. We 
enjoyed moving our bodies so that we could keep warm and use up some of our extra energy.
You can see from these photos above, Koh chan organizing himself, as 
he created an office in the dress up corner. He “plugged” the keyboard and phone in and then took a chair and started to work. We like to play in this way, replicating people in our lives and the things that we have observed about them.
We had a few circle times today with lots of time learning about people and their different professions and jobs. Maryna brought us some fantastic cards with pictures of people in action; doing what they do when they are working e. g. a dentist with a toothbrush; a doctor examining a child; a waiter carrying plates of food; a farmer with a huge container of apples; an artist painting on an easel etc. Once we were 
able to identify the people and explain what they did, our teachers read us cards that asked questions. The questions were all about the different people e. g. Who teaches children to read and write? Yes, you guessed it; it is a teacher. Who plants seeds to grow into fruit and vegetables? Yes, a farmer. Many of the professions on the cards are the same as the ones that we created with junk art. We had turns to use the pointer finger and find the people that matched the questions 
on the cards.
Hisami played the guitar and taught us the names of the notes which we sang. She first sang them and then we echoed them and sang them too. The names of the notes are doh, ray, mi, fah, soh, lah ti, doh. We sang “Twinkle, twinkle little star” with the guitar too. Hisami also taught us how to clap to one beat. She called the crotchet an apple with a stick. We clapped one beat to the crotchet. Then she showed us a picture of one crotchet, a squiggly line , another crotchet and another squiggly line . The squiggly line means pause or wait. So we clapped one, wait, clapped one, wait. There were many different patterns for us to see and copy. Then we took some 
instruments and practiced making the same patterns using them instead of clapping our hands. We used bells, tambourines, maracas, clappers and wooden shakers. We sang “Twinkle, twinkle little star” and played the instruments at the same time, first loudly and then softly. We tried to put our instruments inside the instrument box very quietly too. It was so much fun.
During the early part of the morning, we had a “writing our name” activity at the large table. We had small white boards and white board markers as well as our names on flash cards. We tried to copy our names and you can see some photos of some of them.
We started making some gifts for our families for the Festive Season. Shelley got her hands so 
messy with glue and we gave her beautiful pieces of origami paper which she pasted on the shapes for us. We chose a piece of sparkly wool/yarn which we wound around the presents and some of them have already dried. They look really beautiful and we know that our families will love them.
During our other morning circle time, we changed the weather from sunny to rainy and changed the date to 26th November, Wednesday. When we went to the bathroom to wash our hands before snack time, Shelley sang the initial sounds of our names and we were able to recognize whose name was whose. It is easier for us to see our names rather than listen to the initial sound. We will play more auditory games to help us understand what the initial sounds sound like as we are able to identify the letters visually, quite easily.
We were so happy when we walked into our classroom this morning, to see the sleigh for Santa’s gifts, so full. We know that many of our friends in our class still need to bring their gifts. Please remember to bring our gifts by Friday if possible! Thanks for a great day, after the long weekend.
Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel.iting our