A shmoodge day

We had a lovely morning with Sabine, Kana and Darren as Shelley has three appointments in the office. We played with toys on the mat and spent a lot of time reading books. We especially liked looking at the books that are in boxes. We have Nemo books in a box and also one with insects and eyes that we like to read. We love the huge googly eyes of the insects. Allie came for her second time to school and enjoyed singing with us and playing with dolls. She said: “Open please” when she wanted someone to take the top off her marker. Darren read the book called “Mommy Hugs”. It is all about the way a mummy hugs her baby. We spoke about many ways that a mummy animal can hug her baby and then we did similar actions. We nuzzled; nibbled; tickled; squeezed; cuddled; patted and snuggled. We sang “Ring-a-ring-of-roses” and held hands in a circle.

When Shelley had some time in between her appointments, she sat with us and we did our morning circle with her. We sang “I’m looking to see who is clicking their fingers”; “Open them, shut them” and our “Hello” song. Then Shelley showed us some more hand and body signals and we guessed what they meant. One was saying hello; saying goodbye; showing a sad face; showing a happy face; showing a surprised face and a scared face. Then we showed how we say “I love you” and sang “Love is something”; “Skinnamarinky dinky dink” and “You are my sunshine”.  We did music to the Wiggles CD and did the actions and singing to “Hot Potato”; “Do the Monkey”; “Shake your sillies out”; “Butterflies” and then we curled up into a ball and pretended that we were hiding. We also sang “Tommy Thumb”.

Our parents started to bring in chocolates for the collection that we are sending to our friends in Tohoku. We are so happy to be starting off the theme for this month, by giving to others. We will continue to do this during the whole month.

We are making something special which we don’t really want to talk about too much. We are painting on a small canvas and are learning how artists paint. They sometimes paint using only one colour at a time. This is because they do not want the colours to “shmoodge” together and become brown. The word “shmoodge” is a new word in the English dictionary invented by Shelley in order to describe colours mixing together on a canvas. Today we painted using pink paint and tomorrow we will use another colour. We will complete the other colours early in the week and then put a varnish on top so that the canvas looks shiny. These are our “works in progress”. We used little thimbles with a sponge on the end to paint with. We had to dip our fingers with the thimbles on them into the paint and then dab it onto the canvas. It took a lot of time and care and ended up with some of us painting patterns on the canvas and some of us painting the entire canvas.

Outside we had fun playing in the sandbox. Miya, Emily, Gento and Shoko made miso soup for Kana with the sand; Tokutaro, Noah, Miya and Emily walked on the elephant feet. This was really tricky as you need to try to balance on them. When you walk on them you become much taller. Nico ran around the obstacle course.

Love Shelley, Darren, Kana, and Sabine