Gong Hay Fat Choy
It was another cold day in Tokyo and a big airplane brought someone back to school this morning. Yes, it was Shelley. She flew in while it was still dark and she said that her airplane was the first one that landed in Tokyo 
today; at 6am. Most of us were probably sleeping! We think that she was really happy to come back to school as we all had smiles on our faces when we saw her and we gave her hugs and kisses. We were in the middle of our snack when she arrived and so we finished eating our snack and then read books together on the mat. We are trying to share things with our friends but sometimes find it a little difficult. We had free play with lacing beads, wax strings, toy cars and plastic pegs.
Today is Chinese New Year and Frances, Beckett’s mum, prepared some special things for us to make and eat in order to celebrate the Year of the Dragon. We went upstairs to the third floor and all sat together on the mat. Frances was preparing many things for us so we 
decided to do a morning circle all together. We counted the number of children at school and there were ten children. We counted the teachers and there were four teachers today. There were more teachers than children at school today. Then we spoke about big and small. Darren, Shelley, Kana and Goh are big and we are all small. Darren is a big boy and Jamie is a small boy; Kana is a big girl and Eva is a small girl. Frances was nearly ready for us and she had two wonderful Chinese New Year stories to read, so Shelley read one and Frances read the second one. The first one had pictures of all the things people need and use for Chinese New Year. There 
was a broom, firecrackers, lanterns, special clothes, dumplings etc. The first book was called “Bringing in the New Year”. Frances then read us “The Dancing Dragon”. It was also beautiful and had a picture of a dragon that was so long that it covered eight pages of the book. We are glad that it is the Year of the Dragon as we think that it will bring good luck to us here in Japan and hopefully the rest of the world as well.
We walked around the room while Kana and Frances beat on the drums, with the dragon head holding onto our friend’s shoulders. We looked like we were a long dragon just like the one in the story. We walked to the table where there were many different things for us to use in order to make our own dragons.
We made them out of paper and we attached eyes, eyebrows and a tongue to the head; a tail to the body and 
then we attached the head and the body together. It was so much fun making them and seeing how the parts joined together to make a dragon. The head was red and the body, like a fan in red and orange. We have used them to decorate our rooms and want to wish all of our families and friends who celebrate Chinese New Year – Gong Hay Fat Choy. We learnt to say this today and all of us got stickers because we said it especially carefully. In one of the books that we read today, they said the very same thing! Today we were also so proud of Gento because he said his name for the first time when we sang our “Hello” song. Well done Gento”! We get so excited when our friends do things that they have never done before. So many milestones for us all!
Love Shelley, Darren, Kana, Goh and Marie