Happy Birthdays and Japanese Shogi

We had a rally fun and exciting today with our birthday parties for Eito and Adam as well as Tokutaro’s wonderful Show & Tell. On the main table today we saw lots and lots of farm animals on some green fake grass. Next to the animals were some orange, green, yellow and blue sheets of paper. We could choose any one farm animal we wished and used some wax pastels to do a nice big drawing of our chosen animal. There were horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, cockerels and even a few farm dogs. This reminded us of when Darren’s dog ‘Dash’ came to visit us recently although the toy dogs were not Border Collies. On the second table Sara wanted to make a wooden figure like her friends in Flowers Class. She attached the photo head first and then chose some fabric to make a dress. She turned the fabric over so that we could mark out the pieces we needed to cut off first. We then cut the fabric to size and Sara used some markers to draw in her shoes. We will attach it to the wall in the classroom along with her friends. The soft toys on the carpet were also popular with Alexis, Sara and Lucinda this morning. They decided there were so many soft toys they could make a mountain from them. Gaby, Tokutaro and Adam used the wooden and plastic blocks and puzzles to make structures which they then knocked down! Soon it was time to pack away as we needed to get ready for today’s birthday party for Adam and Eito. They are 5 years old now and Adam told the teachers that his real birthday is over the weekend but he wanted to celebrate with his grandparents Connie and Tom before they return to Texas. We were so lucky and excited to see Chiharu and Eito had made another wonderful Piñata for us to use in the party. Thank you Chiharu and Eito for all your hard work and preparation. Our friends gave Eito and Adam their crowns and gift cards and then Adam’s mother Karen then read us a great book called ‘The Very Lonely Firefly’ which had a great ending with lots of flashing lights inside the book. Eito’s mother Chiharu then read us a nice Japanese book called ‘Shiro Kuma no Hot cake’ which is a great book about a white bear making pancakes. We sang “If you’re happy and you know it” with all our friends and then took turns hitting the beautiful piñata. Eventually after two turns each we let the grandparents and parents have a turn until it broke all over the floor. We did really well sharing the candy and erasers with our friends and were so kind to our friends. Well done Flowers Class! We then moved to the table to have our yummy snacks which Adam’s mother made for us. Yummy cupcakes with bright red frosting and ‘Transformer’ rings embedded in the top. Thank you Karen, Mike, Chiharu, Tom and Connie for making it such a special birthday party. After park time Tokutaro showed us his wooden Shogi set and described how to play it. He told us how Shogi is a Japanese game and can be played a little like chess. He told us how some of the pieces move and then answered lots of questions about his favorite pieces and why he likes playing Shogi. Well done Toku, it was a wonderful learning experience for us all and you told us so much! In circle time we sorted through the big box of animals and used the easel to sort our first group of animals; Farm animals. We put the animals onto the board using sticky plastic and tape. We found lots of farm animals and will keep searching for more to add next week. Have a great afternoon.