Getting used to our new school

Another week starts and we had a beautiful time in the park today. In fact we saw our friends who we used to see in Amishiro Koen from another school in Azabu Juban. They had walked all the way up the hill past Peacock which is a long walk. Luckily our new park is not so far from our school. In fact, in the downstairs class, we have a few rituals when we walk along the lane. When we get near the end of the lane and come to some houses, we always say: “Shhhhh! Let’s walk on tiptoes ‘cos the baby is sleeping!” Our teachers try to teach us that it is important when we are out in the public that we show consideration to people. This is our way of doing the right thing in the community. We sat in a circle and sang our good morning songs. Whenever we end our one song with “I’m looking to see who is sleeping”, we shout: “Wake up!” and then we sing our ‘Wake up’ song which we love. We decorated some hearts for Zachary today as it is his birthday at the end of the month, on April 29th. We used markers today and will put some sparkly paint on the hearts tomorrow.We also did another activity where we sat together at the large table and did actions and singing, while we were waiting for everyone to be sitting together. We tapped the table, we knocked with our knuckles, we cut with the side of our hands, we pretended to play the piano, we tried to put our tummies on the table and we put our elbows on the table too. Then Shelley asked us a question: “What can we look in and see ourselves?” We thought and thought and then she got up from the table and then we said: “Mirror”. When we look in the mirror we see our own reflection which means that we see ourselves. In this activity, three of us sat at a table which was set up right in front of the mirrors. We looked at our reflections and smiled. We could see our faces so clearly and we love looking at ourselves. We each took a piece of white paper with a large circle drawn on it and we started to draw our facial features. We used proper pencils like big children use when they are at school. When we were finished we were amazed because we realized that we had drawn our own faces. These are called self portraits. We have been doing a lot of puzzles lately and more difficult ones with many pieces in them. This afternoon when we got up after rest time, we were doing puzzles and then our mums and families came. This has become a problem as we would like to finish the puzzles before we go home and our mums are sometimes in a rush. Our teachers reassured us that tomorrow when we come to school, we can complete the puzzles. Upstairs, FJ, Sofia, Miya and Nico decided to build a pirate ship in the library area. We dressed up and created an imaginary ship on the carpet. We went to the park early straight after snack time and met Marie on the way as she came from her Yochien. In the library, we read “Gilbert in Deep”. It is a story about a shark and his friends getting into trouble when they were diving too deep. They met some ‘angler fish’ which Beckett recognized because he has a picture of the same fish in his book. FJ and Miya remarked on the jelly fish and this became one of the activities that we did today. We chose some tissue paper which we scrunched into a ball and then we added tape to the outside. We put the tape on roughly and rolled the ball in sparkly coloured foil. The pieces stuck to it and then we used the plastic streamers to make the jellyfish tentacles. We split the streamers using our fingers and they are now dangling from the ceiling. Tomorrow is Photo Day, so we all need to come to school so that we can be in the class photos and have our individual photos. Our teachers have also said that if we do not usually attend school tomorrow, we can just have our group photos and do our individual ones on Friday 26th April which is the make up day for photos. Wishing you all a great afternoon and evening. Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine.