Carpenters & Gardeners

We worked with numbers on the carpet this morning using the Montessori wooden toys. Nanako showed us how we could use the wooden numbers and put them on the boards to make the numbers from 11 to 19. There were some small beads which go with the pieces to match the numbers to. There were also numbers in multiples of 10 e.g. 10, 20, 30, 40 etc. We needed to be careful to count the beads so that we had 20 and not a ten and a two which makes 12. Adam, Alexis, Tokutaro and Olivia decided they wanted to play the memory card game with Goh San on the rug. The cards are from the ‘Bob the builder’ set. Also on the carpet Riko and Marc played with the Kapla blocks to make a big long road to drive the toy cars on. Jessica dressed up like snow white and started to do the jigsaw puzzle on the games and puzzle table. On the table Marc and Alexis used the corkboards, wooden hammers, small nails and colored blocks to make a beautiful picture each. After packing away the toys we all made a circle and looked at some tools that the teachers had to show us. Darren introduced a new job to us today ‘A carpenter’. We looked at the tools and knew that they are different to toys. Toys we play with, tools we don’t! We saw a hammer, a screwdriver, a saw, a nail and a screw. We talked about how the hammer is hard and heavy and we need to be careful not to hurt our hands. We then looked at a screwdriver and saw that the end is a little sharp and Marc told us how we could hurt ourselves or our friends with it if we are not careful. We then moved to the big table to see how to use the tools correctly. There were 4 pieces of wood on the table with the tools and we took turns hammering in the nails and putting the screws into the wood. It was a little difficult at first but we soon got better at it. The nails went right down into the wood, all the way up to the head. The screwdrivers we used next to put some screws into the wood. Meanwhile Arata, Alexis and Marc used a small electric drill to make holes in the bottom of some bamboo. These pieces of bamboo are like cups which lead us into our next activity; taking rosemary cuttings and repotting them. The teachers told us how people who work with wood are called carpenters while those people who work in garden are called gardeners. We saw a big rosemary bush and took 6 cuttings from the plant. Some of us knew that we use rosemary in cooking and each took a small leaf blade in our fingers and rubbed it. It made a nice smell! We then stripped the leaves from the bottom half of our cutting and with a friend filled the pots with a layer of stones. The holes that our friends drilled in the bottom of the bamboo pots were to let some of the water out. We then filled the pots with soil and pushed it down gently with our fingers. Using one finger we made a hole in the soil and taking the cutting we dipped it first in some water, then in a special powder to help it root and finally into the hole in the soil. Together with our friends we gently pushed the soil down around the cutting to hold it in the correct place. They look very healthy and hope to put them on the balcony to keep the mosquitos away in the spring and summer months. Nanako read us a book called ‘What people do all day’. Each page introduces a new series of activities such as ‘Building a new road’, ‘The story of seeds and how they grow’ and ‘A voyage on a ship’. Everyone in the book has a job to do and all the jobs are different. The park was a little chilly but we kept ourselves busy and had a lot of fun. Have a great weekend, stay warm and we look forward to seeing you next week.