Koi Nobori

Today was Moko san’s birthday so she brought us some cookies for both classes which we enjoyed when we got up after rest time. Happy birthday Moko san!

During the day we had some wonderful things to make with our friends and teachers. Upstairs Ava used the Velcro board and attached felt pieces to it while Miya and FJ built a house. They were looking at the book called “The Pirate Cruncher” to see if they could find the treasure map. Then they decided to collect treasure in the form of Lego pieces. Nico, Margo, Ava and Jennifer helped mix the dye for our Koi Nobori which we completed today. We added some lines that marked off their scales and then we dipped their faces into yellow dye. Later on in the day, we dipped their tails into orange dye so they have yellow faces, white in the middle of their bodies and orange tails. We first looked at some real Koi Nobori to see what their bodies really looked like. We noticed that they are covered in scales and so we tried to draw on lines that our teachers had made to make them look like they had many scales. Then we did the dipping and when they were eventually dry, we saw what beautiful Koi Nobori we had made. We are so glad to be able to send them to the children in Kessenuma and hope that they have a wonderful “Children’s Day” there with millions of Koi Nobori flying in the sky.

We used spoons when we were soaking them in orange dye so that we didn’t get orange fingers. The second activity that we did today was to use the marbled blue paper that we made the other day, and make a piece of sand at the bottom of it. These are going to be our ocean and sand scenes. We know that at the bottom of the ocean there is sand and this is called the sea bed. The sand that we made could be the sea bed and it could also be the sea shore. We will make fish and other things that belong in the ocean and perhaps make some things that we find on the sea shore too. In order to make the sand stick on the paper, we spread glue onto the paper and then sprinkled the sand on top of the glue. We shook the paper as there was some residual sand. We sang “5 little sharks went out one day” and “One, two buckle my shoe”. In the library we read a book that Ava had brought to school. It was called “The three little fish and the big bad shark”. The title of the book reminded us of the story about “The three little pigs”. We had a fun time in the park and our teachers noticed how beautifully we played with one another and the most fun of all was coming down the slide together holding hands. Downstairs some of our friends who were not here in Friday had the chance to do stamping with paint and shapes from nature. We used butterflies, trees, flowers, ladybugs and snails. When they were finished, some of us wanted to continue painting and our teachers happily observed what we did. Tokutaro and Vincent both put some paint on their paper and then they folded it, just like we did for our butterfly paintings. Our portfolios are getting full of our work and we also have a few things that we are putting into our art folders to send home soon. Another activity that we did today was puzzles and now we are doing them completely by ourselves. We even tell our teachers that we do not want them to help us. Today a little girl called Hana came to school with her mum and dad and she joined in with our good morning songs and she also sat with us and had a few pretzels for snack time. This week we are really busy welcoming our family members. We already were delighted to have one of Zachary’s grandparents, his grandma “Mita” and tomorrow Lily is bringing along her aunty Ilyssa and her cousins Jacob and Matt. On Friday we have Zachary’s other grandma and grandpa coming to school as well. This week is a real family week and we are loving it.

Spiderwoman and Barney the dinosaur came to school today. We all had a great time using the Lego wall and our teachers realize that when they model using some of the new things in our school, we enjoy playing with them more.

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