Plants, flowers, and seeds
We only needed our Ohana t-shirts today as it was such a beautiful day outside. We loved filling our containers up with water and pouring the water in the sandbox and then going back to the tap to fill them up again. We are so independent that we go to the tap all by ourselves under the “hawk-eye” watch of our teachers. They like to know that we are safe and even if they allow us the freedom to do things on our own, they are always quietly taking care of us.
We had hats on today as the sun feels really hot already.
This morning Nico spent time playing with the Wedgits and we think that he builds them especially precariously so that they can fall and make a big noise on the ground when they come tumbling down. He joined Ren on the mat playing with the Lego. Nico was looking for something in the big container while Ren built some streets and a house. There were many we road signs up and the one that we know really well is…….STOP. The sign is in red with white writing and it is a hexagonal shape. The shape of the cells in a bee hive is also hexagonal. We learnt about bees so it is a co-incidence that both the stop sign and cells in a bee hive are the same shape.
Our morning circle time started off with us sitting on a red flower on the carpet. We could choose whichever one we wanted. Then we sang some action songs and our whole lesson was on planting and seeds and all the things they need. Our songs that we sang today were “I hear thunder” which is an echo song; “I am a little flower”, “Good morning Mr. Sun” and a poem called “Ame” which means rain. Shelley asked us when we were watering our plants: “Where did the water come from?” Ren said: “The rain”. So Shelley asked us if it was raining today and of course it wasn’t. So we had to think a little more. Then Ren said: “It comes from the sink”. “Ahh, said Shelley, the tap”. And we all said “YES”. We watered our plants and noticed that only Darren’s one has sprouted above the soil. We have them placed in the sunlight and they also get sufficient shade as the sun comes there only during our rest time. We also noticed that the avocado seed upstairs has a long root sprouting from it. We are enjoying learning all about growth and nature and new beginnings and especially now in Japan with new beginnings for so many people.
Our activities today were a continuation of the one that we did yesterday, when we made a tree. Today we put sakura flowers on the tree using plastic thimbles with a small sponge on the end. We dipped the sponge into pink paint and stamped the paint all over the tree. They dried really quickly as the paint was thin. During the morning we spoke about flowers and petals and how the seeds in the center of flowers are blown into the air by the wind. They land in the soil and this is how more flowers and plants and trees grow. We sang “Five Sakura so bright and gay” (this used to be our song ‘Five little leaves’) and blew the sakura just like the wind blew them in the park yesterday. When we were talking about flowers, we spoke about insects that like to fly near flowers; a butterfly and a bee. We saw that bees have stripes on their bodies and they collect nectar and pollen from the flowers and take it back to their homes called beehives. They use it to make honey. So we made bees today. We used toilet rolls, yellow and black strips of origami paper, and black plastic ties for the antenna and legs. We will put them on our paintings when we have finished them. Some of us don’t really like insects but they are a part of nature.
In these photos we are doing Yoga; Ren is doing the pose called the table and the three of us are doing a dog pose. We have to make our arms really strong so that we can hold the poses for longer than the count of ten. Phew! It can be tiring. It was a fun day at Ohana and we will show Sui chan what we did today so that she can also make her bee and picture tomorrow.
Love
Shelley and Darren