Terrific Tuesday

Tuesday, February 24^th, 2015 It was a terrific Tuesday with us spending the day in the classroom doing so many different activities and having less interrupted time. Our teachers understand how important it is for us to go outside and move our bodies however they have enjoyed the past two days where we stayed indoors, and learnt so much. We actually did move our bodies because we did music and movement and singing games and actions.

At the activity tables, we had quite a few things to do. We completed our “Obina” and “Mebina” and made the golden screen which we attached behind them. The screen is called a “byobu” and we had to make it have a zigzag design. We folded the gold paper and then flipped, folded it, flipped it, until we had no more paper to fold.

After we had made the screens we started to make origami “Obina” and “Mebina”. We pasted these straight into our workbooks/portfolios and completed them at the same time. After we had folded the origami paper to make their clothes, we cut out two circles for their faces. We looked at one another to see what we have on our faces and drew eyes, nose, ears etc. We pasted the faces into our books together with our teachers and then we selected from an assortment of collage materials, the accessories for our dolls. We used coloured plastic transparent shapes, buttons, sparkles, shiny shapes made out of material, coloured paper and foam shapes. Our Hina dolls are truly original and unique to us.

During one of our circle times, we sang “Akari wotsukemasho bonbori ni” which is a beautiful song that people sing when it is “Hina Matsuri”. Then we had a “Kamishibai” story all about Hina Matsuri. Hisami explained to us that she was going to read a story to us however it was not from a book and she was not going to turn pages. She was going to read the story which was written on the back of a large card with a picture on and when she finished reading the words, she slid the card behind the others. The story was about a rabbit that wanted to know why we have the festival called “Hina Matsuri”. The lady from the mountain who looked a bit scary was wise and she taught the animals many lessons. They were very upset when they thought that they had to put their beautiful “Hina dolls” in the river and never see them again. She soothed them and told them that they can use origami ones instead. They looked for leaves and used the leaves as boats and placed their origami dolls on them and watched them sail down the river. They were so relieved and had a party together with many different “Hina dolls”.

Some of us continued working at the activity table where we cut with pinking shears and pasted onto a specific shape. Today we chose triangles and circles for our bases and spent a long time cutting and pasting.

On the mat, we built with blocks and made houses for animals. We thought that most animals need to have their own house so built carefully around each one.

During music we sang and did actions to many songs e. g. Incy Wincy spider, Hokey Pokey, Heads and Shoulders and many more. We enjoyed moving our bodies and singing. Some of the songs were in English and some of the songs were in Japanese.

Another activity that we did this morning was play dough. We really love using play dough and have not used it for a long time. We pounded, pinched, rolled, flattened, pinched and prodded the play dough. We made some shapes using cutters and enjoyed how it soothes us and keeps us calm. Later in the morning just before we had lunch we tried to make play dough using hair conditioner and flour. The recipe said cornstarch but we couldn’t find any in the school so our teachers thought that we could substitute flour. We loved the smell but the texture was not soft and squishy. We will try to make some tomorrow if our teachers can find cornstarch in the shops.

Tomorrow we will be continuing International Month with Shelley teaching us about Australia. We think that we will be eating something typically Australian too…….it starts with a “v”!

Wishing you all a great evening and we are looking forward to welcoming William L back as he was sick and Liezel, who spent the day with her sister who is just about to have her first baby. Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel