Over in the ocean
What a remarkable Wednesday! We are so thrilled to come to Buds class again. The sunny day is simply a good
sign that today we’re going to have some fun activities. Ritsuka arrived school with her mom. After doing her morning routines, she quickly glanced at the activity table and her beautiful smile conveyed that she wanted to play with our play dough set. It was pretty tricky because we had some colorful cups that we could use for the day. She took the rolling pin first and slightly pressed the dough down to make a smooth texture. Then she slowly pinched the play dough and took a portion of it. She rolled this like a small ball and then put it in the blue cup. Yurika came next and greeted her friends and teachers “Good morning”. She swiftly did her morning jobs for she got so excited to see the play dough on our activity table. When she was done, she set herself comfortably and started making some balls and put them also in the cups. She took four cups and inserted the dough balls that she has made. Her 
teachers asked her about what she was making and she cleverly replied, “bell”. To our amusement, we 
remembered that our bells come in different colors too. Their shape is like a cup and inside it was a small white ball with spring. Yurika’s imagination is truly astounding and she even pretended to shake the cup with play dough steadily. After that simple exploration, we went to our numeracy area but we took out our life books that we have in class. We delightfully looked at the pictures of Ritsuka and Yurika. And they even helped identify their loved ones in the book.
Our special activity started with Ritsuka for today. She didn’t have the chance of doing the ocean art before so we gave her time 
to work on her bubble wrap ocean. She was very quiet but she was able to complete the task smoothly. Yurika was looking at her and she requested her teachers if she can do it too. We said that she’s finished with it but she can put some colorful seaweed on her ocean art. So, we used our colorful wooden sticks. She was very cheerful to do it and she also loved to line up the sticks gently. If her spatula would run out of glue, she would ask nicely and 
say, “Glue, please!” Kaia came as well and she went to the art table to work on her ocean art. She is becoming more expressive nowadays and she likes to describe the things that she sees around her. Her initial reaction when she saw her art was, “Whoa! It’s my ocean!” She indeed understands her masterpiece and proudly presents it to her friends and teachers.
After our short art time, we made a small circle. We only had four children today but it was still fun and 
entertaining to be at Ohana. Ivory arrived at Ohana at a later time and she pointed at Kaia and said her name, “Kaia, Kaia”. She is so positive and very amazing on how she fully adjusted with her surroundings and friends. Great job Ivory! We started our circle time with our morning songs. We also learned more about the octopus and the clownfish. We unraveled the great tentacles of the octopus, how it uses them to find food and to protect itself from danger. And then we learned that the clownfish lives in the sea anemones. The sea anemones were like jelly-like plants that dance and swirl to and fro in the water. After learning more about 
the clownfish, we took notice of its color too. Kaia said, “Oh! The clownfish is orange!” So, our teacher brought out the different colors and we all identified them one by one. Yurika and Kaia were leading in answering the questions. Ritsuka also made big progress in naming the colors.
In our art activity, our teachers said that we’re about to color a beautiful fish today. So, we read a book entitled “Over in the ocean”. It was an interesting book because it described many sea creatures. We didn’t expect that there were so many types of fishes. For example, there were pufferfish, angelfish, gruntfish, needlefish and many, many more. Afterwards, we all got a sketch of a clownfish and we colored it with…ORANGE!
We went up to the office again. Outside, we saw the pool and we’re ready to splash and have fun under the sun. Thank you so much Ohana for the wonderful time and see you again tomorrow! Have a good day!
Lots of love,
John and Goh