We visited Canada and learnt about Chinese New Year

Friday 20th February

This morning there were a lot of flags on the table. At first the children looked for flags they knew, Kosei, Jennifer and Nile knew a lot of flags. Some children preferred to find a flag on the chart and then match it to the flags on the table. Ayaka also started a game where she turned the pages randomly in the flag book and said a country and Flowers had to snap the correct flag on the table. At first Ayaka showed the flag at the same time she said it but Flowers were getting really good at snapping up the flags on the table so she then just said the name of the flag and Flowers had fun snapping them up.

The art table was very busy with Flowers drawing, stamping, cutting and over the world and Flowers came up with lots of ideas such as queens, kings, numbers, flowers, buildings and animals so this is what they drew on their coins. We came up with lots of unique ideas.

After snack today we visited Canada with Jessica and Jeremy’s Mum and Dad, Karin and Ted. We worked out where Canada is on the map and then Karin showed us a favorite food to eat in Canada – pancakes, and of course we have to add maple syrup. Canada’s maple syrup is famous and Karin said to always ask for it when you have pancakes!

We learnt about the Canadian Rocky Mountains which are even taller then Mt Fuji and then we went to the middle of Canada and discovered that Winnie the Pooh is from Canada. Karin asked us why the bear is called Winnie the Pooh but nobody knew. Karin told us the story of how Winnie the Pooh came about. In a town called Winniepeg there once was a man called Harry who was about to go off to war and saw a bear at the station. He bought the baby bear and took it with him to England. It followed him around everywhere but when he had to go to France the bear had gotten big and he couldn’t take him so he put him in the zoo. A boy called Christopher Robin went to the zoo and really liked playing with the friendly bear and the bear gave him and the other children hugs. Christopher’s father saw his son loving the bear so much he decided to write stories about the bear and that’s how Winnie the Pooh was created.

We jumped to the East Coast, where Karin is from and talked about Niagra Falls. Karin did a great experiment demonstrating what a waterfall looks like.

And since it was Chinese New Year yesterday and there are lots of Chinese in Canada, Karin told us the story of how the animals from the 12 year Chinese calender were chosen. The emperor told the animals to race across the water and the first 12 animals to cross would become the animals for each year. The mouse was a bit sneaky and as it sat on the water buffalo’s back it pushed the cat off (so there is no cat amonghst the 12 animals) and jumped onto the bank, coming in first. Some animals helped each other and the hog was last because it stopped to eat something on the way. Flowers listened really well to the stories. Karin and Ted also gave evryone beautiful red envelopes which usually have money in them but had a chocolate instead.

We also received special Chinese New Year Turnip Cake – thank you very much. After we had a good run around at the park playing with sand toys and playing soccer, we were hungry when we got back to school so after lunch we happily ate some Turnip Cake. It was yummy!

Have a great weekend, stay warm and we look forward to seeing you next week.

All our love, Ayaka, Nanako and Sharee