The day after a snowy day

Today was such a beautiful sunny day and some of us had the opportunity to go outside and play in the snow which was so much fun. Upstairs we all went outside a little earlier than usual as our teachers wanted us to enjoy playing with the snow before it melted. We did so many fun things with the snow; we made a snowman with a scarf, hat, gloves and facial features and some of us lay in the snow to make snow angels. We collected snow to take back to school to use for an activity. Our teachers were amazed that some of us used our bare hands when we played with the snow. It was so cold to touch however it was an unusual feeling for most of us. When we went home yesterday afternoon, many of us had to walk carefully so that we wouldn’t slip and fall. We noticed that there were hardly any cars driving on the roads yesterday and even this morning.

 When we returned to school we sat with a partner and we shared a dish filled with snow. We used red, blue, green and yellow food colouring and painted the snow. While we were painting it, we noticed that it was turning into water and we realized that snow is frozen water just like ice is frozen water; but then we wondered what is the difference between snow and ice? Snowflakes are six-sided crystals and no two are alike while ice is frozen pure liquid water.

We spoke about how people can travel on snow and ice and Nico said that you can ski and then FJ said that you can snowboard. We think that it is fun to have a snowy day but we are not sure if we would love the snow all the time.

We read the book called “The Dog Sledder”. It is about dogs racing across the snow in Alaska. The dogs are called “Husky’s” and they are trained to pull sleds across the icy plains there.

We loved playing “hagoita” yesterday so our teachers attached some “hane” which are the balls with feathers attached to them, to some string and attached them to the ceiling. We all had turns to hit the “hane” up and down and then sideways from left to right. Margo noticed the “hagoita” lying on the table which we had painted yesterday, and she also wanted to make one so she sat down and painted hers. FJ loves jigsaw puzzles and started doing a 100 piece one. She completed most of it and will complete the entire one tomorrow.

Downstairs we missed Abiya because she was sick today but we are happy that she will be back at school tomorrow. We learnt that the first month of the year is January and that we don’t have any birthdays this month other than our teachers Ayaka. So today, we decorated hearts for her and when she has her party we will give her the hearts as a gift, just like we do with our friends in class. We drew on them and then used glue sticks to paste colourful pieces of paper on top of our drawings.

We played with play dough and we also did a cutting activity at the table. On the mat, we had our special learning time. Today we spoke about animals and our teachers asked us if we recognized the sound that they were making, and what animal did the sound belong to. We listened to a moo for a cow; a bark for a dog; a growl for a tiger; a tweet for a bird; a buzz for a bee; a meow for a cat and a strange sound for a monkey. This led up to our story which was called “Monkey puzzle”. It was a story about a monkey who had lost its mum. The butterfly said that she would help the monkey find its mum but each time the butterfly took him to the wrong animal. In the end the monkey said to the butterfly that his mum looks really similar to him to which the butterfly gasped in surprise. She told him that her babies don’t look like she does so that is why she made so many mistakes. Eventually he found his dad and then his mum and he was happy again. When our teachers asked us if we look like our mums and dads, most of us said “yes”. We spoke about things that are the same and things that are different. We are learning that New Year in around the world is different in other places.

 We sang “Wake up”; “Hello song”; “Open them shut them”; “Let’s go shopping”; “Today is …………”; “Peanut butter jelly”. We are listening to and learning new songs at the moment and particularly love the peanut butter and jelly one. We danced and moved our bodies to the music after our circle time.

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