And we'll go shopping for things to eat.....

We were so happy to see the rain eventually “go away” just like the words of the song that we have been singing since Tuesday. The song is:

“Rain, rain, go away; Come again another day; All the children want to play; Rain, rain, go away”. We still played indoors as the ground in the park is probably soaked through from four days of endless rain. We read books in the library, sang, played musical instruments and played at the activity tables with play dough and Lilian, Hana and Iva completed their pictures for Father’s Day. We had fun with some of our friends who used to be in our class downstairs viz. Tokutaro, Clodia, Olivia and Lily who joined us in the MPR. They were really caring to those of us who are little and helped us with musical instruments and other things in our classroom. They spent some time with us in our classroom first and of course they all wanted to get dressed up and be princesses, Spiderwoman and butterflies. We also had the opportunity to go “shopping” upstairs so we took our bags with us and off we went. Our friends upstairs have been learning about shopping and all the things that you need to do when you go shopping, in Japanese. Most of us know how to ask for things in English however now we know some things in Japanese too. When we went upstairs there were two tables with lots of things to buy and one of them had a cash register which is where we needed to pay for the things that we had selected. Ethan scanned them and then told us how much we needed to pay. Iva was delighted with her ice cream; Zachary bought some fruit; Vincent bought a hot dog and so too did Lilian, Hana bought an obento and William bought an obento. We carried our bags downstairs and then went to the MPR to play.

During our music routine, we sang “I’m looking to see who is clapping their hands” and then we said “good morning” in different languages. We held hands in a circle and did more actions which included jumping, turning around, tapping our knees, swaying, stamping our feet and clicking our fingers. Zachary said that he was a bit dizzy when he turned around. Upstairs we made cards for Father’s Day using coloured pastels and stickers. Ethan and Ryan enjoyed playing with the plastic dinosaurs and animals on the mat and Beckett and Clodia played beautifully with the wooden construction set. When we arrived we discovered that our classroom was set up just like a shop with many things for sale. There were obentos, hot dogs, ice cream cones, fruit and even jewellery in the form of necklaces and bracelets. We were so excited to go shopping. Those of us who took on the role of shopkeeper, welcomed our customers with a loud “irashaimasse”. The words that we used when our friends were ready to pay for their things were “kore kudasai”; “arigatou” and “ikura desu ka”. Our friends from downstairs came up to shop as well and it was great to have them and be able to share some of the things that we had made during the week. They also joined in with our singing and sang their names when it was their turn. We sang “Hajimare yo”; “Anato no namae” and "Atamakata hiza pong”.

The story that we listened to today was called “Gen kun no machi wo miseyasan”. It was about a boy who walked through the area where he lived, looking at all the shops. He saw a person selling electric things – denkiya san; one that sold vegetables – yasaiya san; a bakery – panya san; a tea shop – ochaya san; a fishmonger – osakanaya san; noodle shop – osobaya san. When he meets a little puppy, his mum says that he can get one and keep it, which made him feel very happy. The last thing that we did to bring closure to our theme for the week was to actually go shopping to a real store. We went to the fruit and vegetable store which is in the same street as our school further into Azabu Juban. We bought some cherry tomatoes, bananas and strawberries. We used the Japanese that we learnt during the week to say hello and goodbye and to buy the fruit that we wanted. Along the way we saw a kutsuya san which is a shoe shop; omochaya san which is a toy shop and a supa which is a supermarket. When we came back to school, we shared our fruit with our friends downstairs. Thanks Ayaka for a wonderful week of Japanese. We look forward to our week of “Building” with Darren.

Have a great weekend and “get better soon” Elisa!

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