Masks and Shadows

It was a very snowy morning and it was great to see the children so excited to see the big flakes falling down. Unfortunately it meant we couldn’t go to the park today but we managed to have a good time indoors anyway. This morning we completed our final day of the space theme. To complete our class planet and rocket mobile we just needed to put some colour on the planet Neptune we made yesterday from paper-clay. When we looked at some pictures of Neptune we saw that it looked blue and so we used blue Posca paint markers on it. The teachers then attached the planet Neptune to our mobile using a hot glue gun. We will be able to take them home next week. Riko and Jeremy used the graphics tablet and computer to make their own space picture today. They used the special pen to work directly on the screen. The teachers then added our face photos to the astronaut’s spacesuit to make it look like we were actually in space on a spacewalk. On the main table we started our preparation for Setsubun next week. Setsubun is a time to remove bad spirits from the house and welcome good luck. The bad spirits (Oni) are driven from the house using beans which are thrown at the Oni. We made our Oni masks from paper bags by cutting shapes in the paper for our eyes and then decorating the bag using markers, pieces of cardboard, yarn and colored paper. On the carpet area the toy cars and Lego were very popular this morning with many of the children lining the cars up. Tokutaro and Adam made lots of Lego vehicles which they flew across the classroom. For circle time, we read a fantastic book called Don’t Let the Aliens Get My Marvelous MUM! The story starts off presuming “If my mum were abducted by aliens, there would be no one to…” for example, wake if you up in the morning, make breakfast exactly the way you like or remind you to bring your gloves, hat, umbrella or handkerchief before you leave out the door. In fact, we could not bear not having our loving mums! We were all so excited with the thought of snow, snow and snow but the weather kept us inside the classroom. Nevertheless, we found fun ways to spend the time indoors, playing musical color games and a freeze dance. We were all great dancers but we would like to give some extra applause to Ryan who won the two games and well done also to Nile, Adam, and Eito for staying until the end for the second game! Just as we were playing a game using different colors, we talked about ‘light’ to finish our monthly theme of space. When Nanako asked how we are able to see things and colors in the classroom, Marc answered that we can see “because of the lamp.” True, people invented light using electricity. Nanako asked “what if we don’t have any electricity, then how can we see?” Ryan answered, “we can make a fire.” We then talked about how the Sun not only brings heat to Earth but also light and without the light, we wouldn’t be able to see many things including colors. On Earth, there are many living creatures that are dependent on sunlight. Plants need sunlight to grow as well as animals on land and in the sea. There are also creatures that absorb and emit light like fireflies. We also see lights and colors in the sky – we might have all seen a rainbow after the rain and if you are lucky you might be able to see Auroras in the Northern sky one day. Just before lunch, on a piece of paper we all drew a picture of “light” using lots of different colors – some drew fireflies, others drew a rainbow or auroras.