Waiting for your turn

What a great Monday we have today! The Buds were ready to explore their surroundings again. Sofia saw a picture of a girl and a boy and she identified which picture was a boy and which was a girl. She then chose a girl’s picture and started using crayons to scribble on it. Lisa and Sofie were at the friendship corner and they loved to play with the big stuffed toys we have in class. Sofie would ride on a tiger and Lisa would hold the dragon up and started making a “rawr” sound. They played for several minutes before moving on to their next activity. Rei spotted the “Noah’s Ark” toys. She opened it up and picked up the animal toys. Dominik was busy with the play dough. He quickly got this toy waffle maker and put some play dough in it. After making several pieces, he lined them up on the table.

               Our circle time was pretty entertaining too. John greeted each other good morning and we started singing songs about feelings. Sofie said that she’s feeling good; Sofia and Dominik said that they are happy too. Rei showed a big smile and so our teachers thought that she’s pretty happy as well.

We have a meaningful circle time today. We thought that we were just playing with the tambourine because John asked us to pass it around after singing our favorite song. But later on, we learned that it was nice to wait for your turn while others were still playing with the musical instrument. If we couldn’t wait for our turn and just took the tambourine from John, we will then have to wait a bit longer than usual. So we have to be very patient so that we can finally sing and entertain our friends more. Everybody did well but of course, sometimes we have to be reminded by our teachers that this rule should always be observed. And next time, we hope that we can do it on our own.

                 Our gym class was today. We met Tanaka-sensei and again he always wears this big smile that can really make us feel more welcome in his class. We did our usual warm-up routine and it was pretty funny for some of us especially Sofia already knew what to do. Sofia was also very energetic. She would do some exaggerated stretching in front of us. Rei was doing the same too. She never fails to entertain everyone with her funny exercise antics. Kaia was quite happy to do some warm-up too. She really liked some stretching and jumping during our gymnastics.

The first activity we did was the crawling and jumping exercises. Tanaka-sensei told us to lay down with our tummy touching the floor and start crawling using our hands and legs. It was a bit challenging for some of us but we managed to move around little by little. Lisa followed these instructions well and it was very nice to see how she enjoys our activities now in Ohana. Sofia and Kaia liked the jumping game for they would ask their teachers to help them jump up so high. They loved the thought of being carried around like a little frog jumping around the river.

              Tanaka-sensei taught us how to balance our body by lifting your feet from the floor and make sure that your bottom is just touching the floor. It was difficult but we tried our best to follow his instructions as much as we could. Rei would definitely need some assistance for she really needs it with her balance. We did the table posture again but we were glad that we can do it gradually. All we need is a little bit of practice.

                Next, we took our cushions out and Tanaka-sensei told us to sit beside it and pretend to play with it like a drum just like in our music class. Nikolas loved to play with his cushion and it was a nice moment for him to learn some rhythmic patterns from Tanaka-sensei. And then, he asked us to roll the cushions like a wheel. We heard Sofia humming a tune of the “Wheels on the Bus”, while pushing the cushions around the classroom. She might be imagining it as a wheel.

                The sun was up this morning and we had a great time at the park. Sofie went with Sayaka to play on the swing and Dominik was waiting for his turn this time. Thank you Dominik for waiting! As the park got a bit crowded, we decided to go back to school.

                As we arrived, put our jackets and smocks away, we found a cardboard box that’s beside our kitchen area. Our teachers told us that there’s a surprise in the box waiting for us. And when we opened it up, we found some toys of people. There was some clear sand in it too. Nikolas really enjoyed playing with the sand. From today, we could actually use this as our sensory bin. Thank you to the teachers for preparing this for us.

Thank you Ohana for a wonderful day again! See you all tomorrow!

Lots of love,

John, Sayaka and Maki