Gymnastics on Mondays

We were hoping that we would have something different to say about the weather today but alas, we do not! So let’s talk about our day and what we did with our teachers and friends.At our activity tables we added to our origami flowers which we made last week. We realize after looking through our books on bees, flowers, butterflies, fruit etc, that flowers grow from seeds that are planted in the ground. They grow upwards through the soil from under the ground, into the air above the ground. The part of the flower which grows above the ground is called the stem or stalk. It can be long and it can be short. It is usually green in colour. So we decided to make stalks or stems for our origami flowers so that when we put them inside our garden dioramas, they are standing up like flowers. We chose a piece of green paper; we had various kinds of paper and different shades of green to choose from. We rolled them like a roll cake and then snipped the bottom so that they can be easily attached to the base of our diorama boxes.

While some of us were doing this activity, a few of us were playing a wonderful matching game called “Zingo”. It is similar to Bingo but it has words and pictures and a special container with plastic cards in it. These cards have the words and pictures on them, and when you slide the special container, the cards come out. We had to be really quick because sometimes our friends had the same picture on their cards and whoever was first, took the card. When our entire card was covered with plastic matching cards, we shouted “Zingo”. It was so much fun and we can’t wait to play it again tomorrow. We sorted some more bottle tops and now have sooooo many. We were also very happy to receive another cardboard egg carton from Lanah, so we will start making our sorting trays this week.

Hisami continued preparing for our End of Year party which has been scheduled for THURSDAY, JUNE 4TH at 9.30AM. Our teachers will put something about it, in the email for everyone to see. We looked at pictures of fruit, vegetables and other things that grow in gardens and start off as seeds. We think that everything comes from a seed. Actually olives start off from wood cuttings so almost everything comes from a seed! Each of us chose a fruit or vegetable and we will use these specific ones for our Japanese song at the party. We will make seeds for our fruit or vegetable and then we will make a 3D representation of it. We spent quite a lot of time in discussions today and one of the other ones that we had was about the jobs that we do in our classroom each day. Our teachers want to make a jobs roster so that we have something that we are specifically responsible for, each day. They wanted us to talk about the jobs that we do individually so that we could work out what jobs we would like to do. These are the ones that we thought about: Library leader Park leader Snack time leader Lunch time leader Pack away leader Smocks leader Shoes leader Every morning when we come to school we will sit down and discuss what jobs we want for the day. Our names are on the chart and there are spaces underneath each job, where we can place our names. We are looking forward to being in charge of something each day and to help our friends when they are in need e. g. Shoes leader is for people who want to help our friends put their outdoor shoes on, when we go to the park……and when we return from the park, we help them put their indoor shoes on; similarly for the smocks.

Our seeds have grown such a lot, and it looks like we have long hair coming out of our heads. We will take our plants home soon and maybe give them a hair cut! Our second gymnastics lesson with Miyashita sensei was very nice and slowly but surely, we are learning his way and adapting to hisstyle of teaching. He has the same programme as the one that Tanaka sensei taught us and sometimes introduces us to a different aspect to the games and exercises. We did one new warm up exercise this morning with a focus on stretching the sides of our bodies.

You can see from the photos how much effort and strength we put into our gymnastics class. We really concentrate and show our teachers how strong and capable we are.

We stood together and held hands in a circle and did different actions that we suggested; Daiki – stamp your feet, Akari – blink your eyes, Lanah – turn around, Koh – jump, William L – clap your hands, Manuel – nod your head, and Luka – shake your body. We then played our game “Concentration” and thought about different animals and then things that we find in a garden. We curled up into tiny, little seeds and told our teachers that seeds need water; so they sang, “It’s raining it’s pouring”, “Ame dear ame, fall from the sky”; and then we told them that seeds need sun, so they sang “Good morning Mr. Sun”. Then we sang together “I am a little flower” and we grew into beautiful flowers and then chose a partner and danced around together. Thanks for a fun, busy day in Petals class. Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel