Happy Birthday Shoko......Happy Holidays everyone
Today was our lucky last day of school for 2012 and we had a wonderful day with our teachers and our friends; Beginnings always have endings and today was no different. We said “Sayonara” to Eva and Oliver who leave Ohana for London; on the second floor we said 
goodbye to Ava Campbell as she will be going to the older class from January and of course we said goodbye to our teachers and friends and wished them a wonderful festive season and all the best for 2013.
We wish everyone safe travels wherever you go and pray that the New Year brings peace in the world where they are fighting a lot and good health to those whom we love. We know that snake starts with “s” and trust that next year will be smooth, successful, splendid, “subarashi”, scrumptious and all good things that start with the “s” sound.
Upstairs we celebrated Shoko’s fourth birthday even though she will be four later in the month. Her mum 
made such an amazing array of foods for us to eat.
She made a gingerbread house and all around it were pieces of pineapple with the letters “happy birthday” on sticks; one in each piece of pineapple. On the top of the house was a number four candle which we lit and this is the one that Shoko blew out. She made little pizzas, jello blocks in green and pink, strawberries and pineapple pieces and there was a selection of doughnuts. We feasted the entire day and when Shelley came up to ask if there were leftovers, we were not so sure if we wanted to share them! She took a piece of the base of the gingerbread house and told us that it asked her to eat it! Can food talk? Kumi, Shoko’s mum brought two of Shoko’s favourite books to read to us; “The Little Mermaid” and “Winnie the Pooh treasury”. Nico put the 
crown on Shoko’s head and Margo have her the heart gift that we all had made for her. We ate some more treats after lunch and then left the rest for our friends who were doing an after school class.
This morning when we arrived at school, Noa, Sophie and Margo spent time making necklaces and bracelets for themselves and their mums. Noa made three small bracelets; one for her, one for her mum and one for her baby sister. Sophie made a very long necklace which she double and make into a bracelet if she wants to. Miya made a beautiful picture using silver and green paper. She made it into a decoration for a Christmas tree.
In our KIDFIT class we had a new teacher whose name was Hanna. We missed Jeth but still had a lot of fun with 
Hanna. We continued learning about our mouths and the different parts that make up our mouth. We remembered that you need to eat healthy food, brush your teeth, do exercises and have enough sleep in order to keep your body healthy. Hanna put some really awful teeth into her mouth and we all thought that they were disgusting and yuk! Even though they were plastic, they looked real. They were brown and big and stuck out of her mouth. We thought that they looked like the teeth of a strange animal. She said that this is what will happen to our teeth if we do not take care of them. Oh, oh, we thought! This was enough to scare us into taking care of them much more than we did before.
Today downstairs Tokutaro was like a big brother to Vincent. He helped him with the puzzle and then Vincent helped him with the puzzle. Vincent and Eva stood on the Lego box looking out of the window, discussing the cars that were driving past and Clodia said that she wanted to be a princess. This happened after Shelley said that she wanted to be a princess today and Eva told her that she couldn’t. She wasn’t sure why but accepted this disappointment!
Santiago spent time cutting the play dough with Ava and then he told us the names of many of the sea creatures and animals that there were in the containers and the story called “Brown Bear what do you see?”
A great last day of the term and big love to our friends Eva and Oliver on the start of their new journey with their mum Susan and dad, Steven.
Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine.