What things are on coins?

We hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed the sunshine over the weekend. This morning when we arrived we saw lots of junk art materials on the table along with colored tape, glue, scissors, paint markers and colored paper. Eito and Nile immediately started making things. When we asked them what they were making they were not sure yet but just had a good time joining the materials together. Marc, Olivia and Alexis came to the table to use the pink playdough. They really enjoy this activity if they have access to all the tools. On the second table we started making hearts to go in the back of Ethan and Ryan’s portfolios, along with our photos and personal messages. It seems that both Ethan and Ryan are going to Japanese school starting in April but will be taking about a month beforehand to take a vacation and prepare. They will therefore be leaving Ohana on Friday 27^th February. We will be having a small bye-bye party for them on Wednesday 25^th and wish them all the best for the future. They will be sorely missed. On the carpet Nanako put out some wonderful Montessori numeracy activities. The idea with theses number boards is to introduce the teens to us 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 & 19. Olivia and Jennifer were very interested in this and came to play. After packing away the toys Nanako read us a great book titled ‘Tebukuro’ which means ‘Glove’. The story tells of a glove dropped in the snow which lots of animals climb into to keep war. It becomes very cramped with so many animals and gives us a good idea about sharing space with our friends. We headed for the park where the sun was shining. Our daffodils and bulbs we planted last week are looking good and are growing fast in the sunshine. When we got back from the park it was time for our weekly Japanese gym class with Tanaka Sensei. We started off by warming up and stretching our arms, legs and necks. We then tried the ‘bridge’ pose with our friends. We are getting a lot better at this pose and we have improved a lot since we began the program. We then tried a balancing game where we have to walk on the yellow taped lines and avoid capture by Tanaka Sensei. This is a lot of fun. We tried another game too today where we had to walk and when Tananka Sensei blew the whistle we had to pair up as quickly as we could boys with girls. We then tried a game seated on the floor where we needed to shuffle along. If we got caught we needed to raise our hands and say “Help me” in Japanese. Once a friend came along we were released. In circle time Nanako began by singing “If you’re happy and you know it” and we gave some good ideas for actions too. We then sat in a circle and sang our new song “Love is something if you give it away”. We then got back the coins we put in Coca Cola last week to clean them. They looked very shiny. We tipped the cola away and using some warm soapy water and a sponge we cleaned them a little. We then looked carefully using a magnifying glass to see what was on the coins. We made a list together: First there were some numbers 1, 2, 20, 50 and 100. Then we saw there were pictures too of faces, flowers, buildings, kangaroos, Lions, Eagles, trees, circles and even a lighthouse. We will make our own coin designs next week too.