We have visited Japan, China, Canada, Hong Kong, Ukraine & Poland !

We hope you all had a great weekend despite the rain. This morning on the tables we saw a special crown for one of our friend’s birthday this coming Friday. We used lots of colored markers and colored pencils to decorate the crow and our friend will have the chance to wear it at her birthday party celebration. On the second table we saw the pieces of colored paper we used last week to make our own personal flags. We looked at the existing flags hanging across the classroom and the flag map and saw lots of different shapes such as circles, stripes, triangles, diamonds and stars. There were a few of us last week who missed this activity and today had the chance to make our own flags. On the table there was also a mirror, some magnifying glasses and an ink pad with paper. Last week we discussed how we needed to have our fingerprints taken at the airport immigration and how everyone’s fingerprints are different. Using the mirror we were able to press our fingers on it and see the marks it left. We then used the inkpad to make a fingerprint on the paper and looked at it very closely to see if we could make out the small lines unique to our own fingerprints. It was a little cold in the park but we soon warmed up by running and sliding. Several of us found some sticks which we used to write words in the sand. In gym class with Miyashita Sensei we warmed up by jumping and stretching and then tried some side balancing exercises. We usually count to 10 in Japanese when doing or holding a position but today we counted to 20. After warming up we set up the chairs as obstacles and jumped around the chairs using both legs in the air at the same time. We then switched to hopping for the final part. It was a little harder than we expected but we managed it. For the second activity we did star jumps, we then hopped and finally did a big double leg jump over the mat at the end. We then played a game where we could move on our bottoms and Miyashita Sensei counted down from 10 and then if he touched us we had to put our hands above our heads but our friends could release us and said “banana”. In circle time we looked at the big wall map showing all the countries we have visited so far as part of our international month and added some colored string going from Japan to Canada to China to Ukraine, back to Japan and then finally onto Poland. This shows us our whole world trip. Later this week we are heading to Korea which we are looking forward to. On the Library wall we also have a big chart showing the countries with their flags, famous places, important features, the kind of money they use, the language, animals, traditional clothing, food and sports. Today we reviewed China and Japan and decided which countries we would expect to see Mt. Fuji, The Great Wall, Sumo wrestlers, ping-pong, sushi, panda’s and more. We put them into two rows on the carpet as we sorted them and then added them to our big chart on the wall. Soon we will have lots of new pictures for Canada, Ukraine and Poland too!

Have a great afternoon and we look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow.

All our love, Darren, Ayaka, Pooja and Ryoan