Welcome back Nanako
It is so warm inside our classrooms and outside our teachers think that it is really cold. We don’t feel the cold as much as they or our parents do; nevertheless we bundle up in our jackets and school vests and off we go to play outside. We had fun for some of our outside time as both classes played together so some of us could be with our siblings.
Upstairs, we did an interesting activity at the table today. Some of us already know how to draw the letter “e” and some of us even know what sound it makes. We know that it is the first letter of elephant, egg, exciting, extra, egg plant, energy and electricity. We decorated a spiral using sparkly pens, markers and then finally some glitter which as beautiful as it looks is quite messy. When Ayaka went outside she had some green glitter on her face. We used the glitter by placing the spiral shape inside a circular dish and then sprinkling the glitter on the glue. When the spirals are dry we will cut them and discover a new shape and then hang them like a mobile.
Continuing with our learning about the letter “e” we listened to the song “Eggs in the pan” which emphasizes the sound. Then we pretended to hold an egg very gently and then crack it open, just like in the words of the song. The song goes like this: “Eggs in the pan eh, eh, eh,
Eggs in the pan eh, eh, eh
Eggs in the pan eh, eh, eh
Crack the eggs like this”
We read the book called “On the day you were born” and then we had a discussion about where we were going during the holidays. Sometimes we like to stay at home during the holidays and have time out from our regular schedules and sometimes we like to go to different countries. 
These are some of the places where some of us said that we are going: Ava – California; Jennifer – England; Nico – Manila; Jamie said that he will be in Tokyo and that he went to England before; FJ – Australia; Oliver – London; Beckett – America; Margo – Thailand; Andres Felipe was staying in Japan. In our morning circle time, we sang “ring a ring of roses” and then tried some action poses using our remote controls. We stood up, sat down, ran on the spot, swam, made ourselves look like a Christmas tree, a star, a reindeer and then an airplane. We sat with a partner and put our feet together and sang “row your boat”. We then played a game in a circle similar to “duck, duck, duck goose”. We all had a turn to walk around the circle saying the words red, red, red, red, red……….and when we said green, that child had to get up and chase us around the circle and we had to try to sit down quickly! We got so excited and screamed!
Downstairs, we had a lot of fun with our friends and teachers and welcomed Nanako back from her trip to Ireland and England. She said that it was so cold and it was good to see old friends and family. She visited the school in Ireland that we share our news with once a month and they sent a photo back of her in front of the board where news from all around the world is displayed. The photo at the top of this posting is of Nanako and one of the children with her Japanese flag. We missed her and are so happy that she is back and she didn’t even fall asleep from jetlag!
We made some daisy chains using red and green strips of paper and joined them together with tape. We played with our yellow play dough which we haven’t used for a long time. We enjoyed cutting it up after rolling it into sausages; we made it flat with a roller and we enjoyed breaking it into small pieces which we placed inside our colourful cups. We read “Sammy Spider’s First Channukah” again and love the part when his mum tells him: “Spider’s don’t spin spinning tops, they spin webs.” We lit the candles again and today we lit five candles plus the helper candle which is called the “shamash”. We read a Mother Goose book that many rhymes and poems that Shelley learned when she was little like we are now. We can’t imagine that she was little like us!
Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine.