Happy birthday Jennifer

It was another glorious day in the park. We had plenty of sunshine, enough warmth from the sun, our fabulous teachers and friends to play with and the fresh air around us. In fact we were all together for most of the day as Shelley had the “Brainstorming” meeting with some of our mums, to organise how to raise money for the drums that we will buy and take to Oshikahanto in March next year. We all got together for Jenny’s birthday party and stayed together until the end of lunch time. Our teachers felt so proud of those of us who are the older ones in the school because we helped our little friends from downstairs to get ready for the park.

 Jennifer had a wonderful celebration for her belated birthday which was at the end of September. She was sick on her birthday so we had to delay the party. Her whole family came to school and we sang with them and her dad read us a book. It was one of her favourite books about telling the time with Peter Rabbit and his friends. Her dad’s name is the same name as our teacher Darren. Her dad, Darren read the book to us while her mum Rie and her brother William sat on the chairs and listened. We sang “If you’re happy and you know it”; we danced to “Hot Potato” and “The Monkey dance” which are also some of Jenny’s favourite songs. We also sang “Happy Birthday to you” and Jenny blew out her candles.

We had beautiful cupcakes and Jenny loved the hearts we made for her. She said “thank you” to us without any big people telling her to do so as she really appreciated the gift. We want to say thank you to Darren, Rie and William for coming to the party and for making such yummy cupcakes for us. Even our teachers loved eating them! We think that our families are really kind to us and our friends at school especially when one of us had a birthday party.

Downstairs we had some free play time and took out the musical instruments. We played them while singing and dancing to the music. We also emptied the entire container of cars and are extremely helpful when packing away. We read the story ‘The Little Engine that could’ and learnt that we can do anything if we set our mind to it and believe in ourselves.

Before we went upstairs, Ava completed her face; pasting facial features on it and we all did one exercise using long toilet rolls and rubber bands. We looked through the toilet rolls and pretended that they were spy glasses like pirates use; Vincent put his on his nose as if he was an elephant and then we held them to our ears and our friends and teachers spoke to us through them. Then we took rubber bands and tried to place them around the rolls. This took quite a lot of manoeuvering and in the end we managed to place about eight rubber bands on our rolls. This exercise was specifically for fine motor co-ordination and it was fun to use a different medium for our learning.

 Upstairs Jenny and Miya were really excited when they saw all of the junk art materials on the table. They looked carefully at the farm animal book and Jenny decided to make a rooster whicle Miya wanted to make a horse. They used a variety of materials e.g. toile rolls, tubes, old CD’s, lollipo sticks, yoghurt pots, corks and plastic cups. We will all make 3D animals over the coming week.

During circle time we spoke about the Food Chain and looked at a picture of flowers and plants. Our teachers asked us: “What kinds of animals do you think eat flowers and plants?” We thought of perhaps rabbits, caterpillars and snails. Our teachers then asked us another question: “What eats caterpillars, snails and rabbits?” We thought of lizards, eagles, and birds. Sometimes it doesn’t feel nice to think that cute little rabbits can be eaten by other animals. Our teachers say that we will learn a lot when we get older about the things that we eat as well and maybe our feelings and eating habits will change then! We read another book called “Oliver’s vegetables”. It is a story about a boy called Oliver who likes to eat vegetables but most of all he likes to eat potato chips.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Ayaka, Nanako, Sabine, Goh and Christine.