Happy birthday Maki and Setsubun

         The Buds are ready again for a great Tuesday! We started our day with the new Montessori toys we found on our table. We also had some play dough and puzzles that we could manipulate if we wanted to. Maki and Sayaka told us to crumple pages of old newspaper and we did what they asked us to do but we had no idea what it was at first until we found out that we will use for our activity later.

                During our circle time, we sang some songs with John and then Sayaka showed us the “Oni”, we felt it was not so scary, it was actually funny because of the mask. It looked a bit silly. Sayaka told us that the Oni was lurking somewhere around here and we needed to ask him to go away. So she said we have to say, “Oni wa soto, Fuku wa uchi” which literally means “Oni outside, Good luck inside”. We had to say this as many as we could for we really wanted the Oni to go away from our class.

Our teachers put four Oni masks on our mirrors and they told us that the crumpled pages of newspaper we made were like beans that we would use to throw at the Oni. We couldn’t use the real beans because it was very tiny and some of the younger ones might just eat them and not use them for throwing. So Sayaka and Maki told us to get ready. Then, we counted from one to three and we started throwing away the newspaper, it worked and we drove the Oni so far away from Ohana. We feel that our school would be receiving more good luck this year because of the bravery and strength that Buds class showed this morning.

We sang a song about Setsubun. And the song was performed with full of energy and we felt that the Oni would not be coming back because we showed him how strong the Buds class were. The Flowers class went down and they saw us perform this very special song. Ayaka told us that they also wanted to join. So Noa and the other kids from Flowers class danced and they definitely let the Oni know that we were stronger if the other classes would join and sing the song altogether.

                Also, today we celebrated Maki’s birthday. She’s truly working hard for our Buds class and she definitely enjoyed being with us all the time. All the classes from Ohana went down to our classroom just to spend this very special time with her. We gave her the crown and the birthday cards that we all prepared for the past few days. We’re so happy to see her big smile on her face. After giving her the presents, Ayaka turned off the lights and we all started singing a birthday song. We also sang “If you’re happy and you know it…clap your, hands, stomp your feet, jump around, say hooray and finally say Happy Birthday Maki!”It was a wonderful day for us and of course for our dear teacher Maki.

                After Maki’s birthday celebration, Sayaka told us a story about “Onita”. He was a shy demon but was helping people in finding the lost toys and polishing men’s shoes secretly. But on Setsubun, he heard the sound of soy beans falling and he was so afraid of it. So, he picked up his old straw hat and ran away to find a new home. When he finally found one, the house was owned by a little girl with her sick mother. The mother asked the little girl if she had anything to eat, she said “that generous boy gave some food leftover from Setsubun”. Onita looked at the kitchen and realized that the girl was lying. So off he went, with his straw hat, to find some food for her. And Onita told her that he got some leftover food from Setsubun just like what the little girl lied about. The little girl brought this to her mother and she said that she wanted some beans too so that she could throw the beans at the demon to make her mother feel better. Onita was so sad to know everyone thinks that bad things happen because of the demon. So, he changed himself into a straw hat full of beans. The little girl wondered where he had gone to but she whispered into her heart “he must’ve been god in disguise. Mommy will get better soon!”

It was a great story to hear and we all enjoyed reading it over and over again. It may be a bit challenging for us to understand but we loved the pictures anyway. We also went to the park today but only for several minutes because of our very busy schedule. We ran in the vacant lot at the park and the Buds enjoyed catching the monkey game with our teachers.

Lots of love,

John, Sayaka and Maki