Sensory Foam

Good morning! Early this morning, it was drizzling outside. We said “bye-bye” to our mommies and daddies and they said, “Have a wonderful day at school!” And then, we went straight inside the classroom and found the train tracks and cars. They are always our favorite toys and they also promoted more associative play in Buds class. We then saw some sensory materials on one table and two small boxes on the other. We also found some interesting books in the library and of course, we didn’t miss the chance of picking the right book for us today. Nanako called us to come to the table as we were to start our sensory activity. She put out the shaving cream, straws and some sand. We took turns in pressing the top of the shaving foam tube so that the foam would come out. And then, we all observed until everything was mixed. We then saw a mushy, sandy and soft texture. We dipped our hands inside and some of us were a bit hesitant to touch it. But eventually, we were able to touch and feel the sensory foam and it was fun! We also did marbling painting today. We are going to use these paintings for our family photo frame for next week. We saw the paint trays with different colors and inside there were round objects – we call these marbles.  As we picked each marble, we put it in the box so that it will roll on our paper (the paper was also in the box).  We then turned our boxes until it created wonderful patterns. We then showed them to our teachers and we celebrated our accomplishment for today.

During our circle time, we did our warm-up exercises through dancing. We danced to Hot potato and the Bath Song. We then sat down and listened to John when he played the piano for us. We heard four types of music. We had music for tapping our lap, flying like butterfly, stomping and sleeping. We had a great time listening intently so that we can do the right actions. We really liked the sleeping music because we all lay down and pretended to sleep. And when we heard the big sound, we all got on our feet and started stomping like an angry dinosaur. After the fun music activity, we talked about using the words “in” and “beside”. We incorporated this learning experience by telling a story about a baby who wanted to celebrate her birthday. But her friends didn’t come so Buds class had to make her feel happy. So, we took some vegetables, fruits, rice and of course our cake from the kitchen and gave them to the baby. We sang the happy birthday song and after that we ate everything.  Afterwards, we needed to clean up but before we did that, we have to put the food either in or beside the bucket. Some of our friends were able to understand the concept easily but for some they need more time to develop it and it is certainly fine.

We also learned some Japanese songs, “Ohanashi yubisan”, “Genkotsuyama no Tanuki san”. It was very interactive with Sayaka because she also read to us a book in Japanese that was related to the songs. And then, we went to the library and Nanako read a book to us about autumn. Since that autumn is coming, it is a perfect way for understand this season of the year through music and songs.

Thank you so much Ohana for the wonderful day! See you all next week!

Lots of love,

All the children from Buds class 2015-2016