Ants on my arm

Tuesday 19th^h June 2012 When we arrived this morning we could see some little whiteboards on the table along with some markers and our names written on paper. We tried to copy our names using the whiteboard markers and we also had a good time drawing pictures on them too. Next to the small whiteboards there was also the light-box that we used yesterday but we noticed there were some sheets of paper with a lower case ‘a’ printed on them underneath the blank sheets. We liked to color in the letter a using the markers and did a really good job staying inside the lines. On the carpet we saw there were the large foam letters with the wooden alphabet puzzle. By looking at the puzzle we could see which foam letters we needed to use to complete the alphabet on the floor. We were able to clip all the letters together and it stretched from the carpet right up to the door to the kitchen. It looked great but we knew we would have to take it apart to get ready for snack time. We wanted to play with the cars and the teachers got out the road carpet for us to play on together. After packing away the toys and eating our yummy snacks we decided it would be best to go to the park before the rain started. The park was very busy with lots of children playing together. Gento decided he wanted to play in the sand box and was busy pouring sand into containers, Tokutaro decided that he wanted to play soccer with Lily while Shuhei was busy playing with the big park toy cars. Miya and Jenny were on the swings for a long time as Miya has recently learned how to keep swinging all by herself. Yossi found the ‘elephant’s feet’ toys fun and did a great job balancing while holding the ropes and walking. After coming back from the park we did our circle time and started off by singing our ‘good morning’ song and then did the actions and song to yesterday’s letter/sound ‘S’. It was fun moving our hands like a snake while singing. Darren then showed us today's letter / sound which was ‘A’, ‘a’. We saw some big Styrofoam letters and it was very funny putting our faces in the middle of the letter ‘a’. We then saw in the book a picture of some ants at a picnic on a little girls arm. Darren then showed us how we could show some ants on our arms by moving our fingers up and down our own forearms just like ants. We could then sing a fun new song to go with the actions: A,a, ants on my arm, A,a, ants on my arm, A,a, ants on my arm, They are causing me alarm. We then drew giant letter ‘a’s’ in the air with our index fingers to show how we would usually write a letter a. We could then have a try on our very own paper where we could start at the top and go around the circle part, up to the top, back down the same line and put a tail. We even drew some things that start with ‘a’ around the letter such as apple, ants, alligator, ambulance, apron etc. The teachers then gave us the large Styrofoam letters ‘A’, ‘a’, ‘S’ and ‘s’. We had so much fun using the paint markers on the letters while listening to the songs from yesterday and today on the cd player. We got a bit messy but soon washed it off our hands. We are looking forward to another exciting day tomorrow. Love always Darren, Kana and Rachel