Table tennis and tennis

We had so much fun looking at and talking about different kinds of balls. We counted 10 balls on our carpet during one of our circle times. There was a bowling ball, tennis ball, table tennis ball, baseball, soccer ball, squeeze ball, super ball, bouncing ball, sponge ball and a few other smaller balls. The black bowling ball was the biggest and the orange table tennis one was the smallest. We felt the balls and not only compared their sizes but also their weights. Miyu said

that the black bowling ball was light and the white baseball was heavy. The ball that bounced the most, when we dropped it from a certain

height, was the super ball. It bounced even when you didn’t bounce it. It was like magic. The squeeze ball didn’t bounce at all.

We started off drawing with Posca’s on balloons. Some of us drew faces so that it looked like a monster and some of us just drew patterns. We played our own pretend tennis game with the balloons and a fan. We had to try to keep the balloons in the air. At the second table we used small table tennis bats and rolled a small sponge ball along from one end to the other. This game was for two people with one person standing at each end of the table. We had to change some things at this sporting table, because the small balls got stuck inside the opening in the tissue boxes. Hisami attached flattened tissue boxes to the sides to make “tram lines” so that the ball

wouldn’t go off the sides of the table.

We also used different balls for this game as well as a balloon. Balloons can be tricky because they are so light, any little wind blows them around. Kenichi and Taiyo played this game together for a long time. They chased the balls around the floor because they kept on falling off the table.

In our first circle time we changed the calendar and were happy to

change rainy and stormy to sunny, for the weather. We sang our good morning song and then

Hisami played the piano and we tried to sing the same notes back to her. We have learnt how to sing echo songs and realized that we needed to first listen and then sing. She sang three notes to each of us and we had to copy her. When we

were going to the park, we sang similar notes again.

We each had a turn to hold a table tennis bat and try to hit a small ball and a balloon. It was

easier to hit the balloon this time, because the bats were so small, hitting a small ball was really difficult. We learnt that when you play sport in a team, you wear a uniform. We looked at the Samurai’s T-shirt which is the Japanese soccer teams T-shirt. We found numbers on the T-shirt, a Japanese flag and someone’s name on the back. The name was Honda. We think that he is a famous Japanese soccer player.

We read part of “Whacky Wednesday” because today is Wednesday.

In the park, we played in the green area with the balloon. The only problem was that there was a slight breeze and the balloon sometimes stayed up for a long time and we couldn’t reach it. We tried to catch it but it floated away. Luckily there is a net in the green area so the balloons cannot float away completely. We laughed and had fun. Hisami blew a balloon up and then she let it go; and we tried to chase it as it flew

like a snake in different directions, as the air came out. We were the only children in the park and all of us played together in the end when the other children had left. We have a great Summer School Petals Class.

We are in the middle of our week of Sports and tomorrow we will be playing baseball. We will make bats and try to hit the balls that we looked at today. We are not sure if we will be able to hit the big or small ones; the heavy or lights ones etc. Enjoy your afternoon on this lovely day.

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel