Exercises on Friday

The weatherman was right this time; he predicted snow last night and some light snow fell and this morning, he or she said that it would be cold, and boy it was a cold day today. We had a new KIDFIT instructor called Tony and he introduced us to the organ in our bodies, called the heart. We did actions to a song similar to the “Hokey Pokey” and played with some fun new equipment. We played with balls that were nearly as big as some of us are. We played with partners and kicked the ball to one another and tried to throw it and catch it. We crawled through a tunnel, jumped on Hopscotch and did somersaults on a mat. We walked along a foam balance beam with the help of our teaches and we had to stand inside a red shape and try to keep still inside it. We learnt that we need to eat healthy food, do exercises and get enough rest. Tomas sat right next to Tony so he could see exactly what movements he needed to do.

   We read stories in small groups with our teachers and really enjoyed the quality time where we could chat about the stories and name the things that we saw on the pages. One of the books that we read was all about animals in South Africa and what animals you can see if you go on safari. We saw lions, elephants, hippopotami, cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, baboons, nyalas (they look like deer), black rhinos, cape buffalos and some birds. When they people went on safari they took along their cameras and binoculars. Another book that we read was also about animals however it more specifically was about the days of the week. It was called “Today is Monday” and animals were a part of the story rather than the focus.

During the morning, those children who had not done theirs, completed their “Shodo” together with Hisami and all of us had a chance to paint one “hagoita”. We used pink, red and white and could choose either one colour or use all three of them, like Lilian did. On Tuesday, after the long weekend, we will complete all the painting and then decorate the other side with beautiful patterned origami paper. We sat in a large circle after holding hands and doing many different actions with our teachers and our friends. Hisami explained to us that a clock is a very important part of a classroom. When we looked at the clock, we saw that the small hand was in between the ten and eleven and the large hand was almost on the six. This meant that it would soon be our KIDFIT lesson, so we stood up and went downstairs with our teachers.

Upstairs, some of our friends did their “Shodo” paintings of the kanji for sunrise which is “Hinode”. We have learnt how to make the correct brush strokes and feel like we are artists when we do this. Some of us played “Sticky Fingers” where we have to match the colours and patterns using our fingers and small balls which fit into holes. On one of our other activity tables, some of us made patterns using coloured blocks in varying shapes, nails, hammers and corkboards. Ava came back from New Zealand this morning and she told us that she saw lots of sheep there. In fact she stayed on a sheep ranch so she made a sheep on her corkboard. She also planted her bulb into one of the planters on the balcony.

   We read “Katie and the Mona Lisa”. It is a story about a girl who goes to a museum and she really likes the painting of the “Mona Lisa” by Leaonardo da Vinci. So she climbs into the painting and enters the world of the “Mona Lisa”. She is curious to know why she is smiling. After we finished reading the story, Sean noticed that we had a picture of the “Mona Lisa” in our classroom.

We started decorating our “tako” which are kites that people fly during New Year in Japan. We used Posca markers and permanent markers. The kites are made out of a plastic fabric therefore we had to think carefully about what we used on them. We drew shapes on them e. g. circles, squares, triangles etc. We will add more shapes to them next week and take our time to decorate them.

We wish you all a great long weekend and look forward to seeing you on Tuesday for the start of a new week.

Love Shelley, Darren, Hisami, Ayaka, Liezel, Nanako, Goh, Christine and Maryna