Laughter is the best medicine

It was a really cold and miserable day today and while we had to stay inside we had plenty of opportunity to move our bodies and do exercises as well as play and learn with our friends and teachers. It is an interesting time for our teachers as they observe us particularly now as the Parent Teacher conferences are in 10 days time. Downstairs they can see the “terrible twos” taking place with some of us and they are learning to ignore our behaviour so that we can hopefully change it and move into the “terrific threes”! We had a beautiful morning playing with Noa. She came downstairs and together we built two imaginative play areas. They one was a zoo with lots of animals, a ticket office and a train that carried animals on it. The second one was a house with a family inside and many people ringing the bell and coming to visit them. We loved ringing the bell and coming inside to visit the family. We were really amazed as there were three toilets in the house as well as a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. We think that Noa had fun with us and we hope that she will come and play again. When she left, we made birthday hearts for her which will be her birthday gift from us. We used markers, sparkly pens and glitter paint. Our teachers helped us squeeze the bottles of paint as our fingers were not strong enough to push the glitter paint through the tiny nozzle. We then used our pointer finger and spread the glitter paint on the hearts. They are so beautiful and sparkly. We also did cutting this morning as well as music and movement. We did actions to the Wiggles CD and listened to a story called “Are you my mother?”

In the featured image for this journal entry, Eva and Tokutaro went and sat underneath the table just before lunch time. We had done this earlier when we practiced our Earthquake Drill. They spent time just looking at each other and laughing together.

Upstairs, we made insects by pressing the paper clay into our bug moulds. We first squeezed the paper clay with our hands and then using a spoon, we pushed the paper into the shapes that were made from Plaster of Paris. Finn made a butterfly; Noa made a flower; Oliver made a snail; Beckett made a caterpillar; Jamie made a ladybug and Nico made a butterfly. Afterwards we put them into the oven to try to speed up the drying process. In this weather it will take a few days for them to dry out completely.

Beckett and Noa did their paintings using rollers first and then dropping paint onto the paper with a pipette. The effect is a bit like a water colour painting as the drops from the pipette spread out onto the watery paint underneath it. We will be using these as backgrounds for our bugs that are in their moulds at the moment. Kana made a beautiful tree which you must come and see. It is next to the window in our classroom and all of our nests with owls in them are in the tree. It feels like we have a nature classroom.

We did Yoga today and were all given the opportunity to choose a pose from the Yoga cards. We started off by practicing how to breathe slowly and deeply; to hold our breath for five to ten counts and then let it out slowly. We read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and followed the days of the week carefully. We know the order of the days of the week from our “Today is…….” chart. We were surprised that the caterpillar could eat so many unhealthy things on Saturday. We think that he never learnt about the Food Pyramid like we did.

We hope that everyone has a great weekend and stays warm and dry. Brrrrrr!

Love Shelley, Darren, Goh and Kanako