Ants and other insects

Good morning! We had a bit busy day in the morning for we had some great activities prepared by our teachers today. We did our morning jobs and we could actually do these things on our own. The play dough table was very busy today too. We’ve got some pipe cleaners and other utensils that we could use. We loved to use the toy knife and cut the play dough through. Our fine motor skills development is constantly being stimulated by the tasks that we had to do in our classroom. Today, we painted at some small pots. Chiaki was there to help us out and we simply enjoyed spreading the colors around them. We didn’t have to cover the entire pots with paint as long as we can be very creative with it that’s totally fine for us. In some aspects, we are also developing our cognitive skills by using and identifying the colors. The other side of the table, we had some Popsicle stick art that we did yesterday. Some of our friends were not able to finish it yet but we’re getting there.

During our circle time, we made a big, big circle and did some warm-up exercises. We marched slowly then quickly. We knocked our knees together, rolled our knees, bent and extended them altogether. After that, we all sat down and started singing our morning songs. The “How are you today” song was quite popular because we always said that we’re feeling great or happy. We also asked our teachers and they replied the same thing. Then, we talked about the ants more. We had this wonderful book about insects. We saw the ants, bugs, beetles, dragonflies and butterflies. We learned about the body parts. The ants have the bottom, thorax or body and the head. There are antennae on its head and they can communicate through them. We then have the paper cut-outs, strips of newspaper and pipe cleaners. Our teachers asked us that we could use our imagination to make an ant with these materials. We slowly put them all in one piece and eventually we were able to stick the body parts. After making an ant craft, we then passed it around while we sang, “The Ants go marching”.  We ended our circle time marching and going around the classroom.

Before we went to the park, we read the books about Spot. We really want to discover what’s underneath the pages. We also giggled a lot when we’re walking to the park and saw our imaginary dinosaur’s house. We love to peek inside and discover what the dinosaur was doing inside. We had to walk slowly so that we don’t wake the dinosaur up. We arrived at the park and fortunately we were the first ones to enjoy the whole place. John asked us to look for ants around the park and mostly we found the ants on the stairs and beside the plants. Thank you so much Ohana for the wonderful experience. See you all again tomorrow!

Lots of love,

All the children from Buds class 2015-2016