Welcome Shoko chan

Today is the last day of May. Sometimes people say: “A pinch and a punch for the beginning of the month”. This is funny. We were so happy to welcome Shoko to Ohana for her first day at school and she had a beautiful day. She was so happy from the moment she arrived and a few times during the morning, she asked: “Mama wa?” and our teachers told her that her mummy was at home and would pick her up after lunch. She seemed happy with this and got involved in so many activities during the day. Shoko played with the play dough and made different patterns using shapes. We all sat together and rolled the play dough flat and used the small plastic red shapes on it. We named the shapes and are amazed that the play dough has lasted so long. We made it all by ourselves in January and we think that the large amount of salt has helped preserve it for so long.

We had two other activities to do at the tables. The one was threading materials onto wire and the second one was drawing at the literacy table. The literacy table is out for us to use all of the time and we can do whatever we want when we are there. We have staples, rulers, pens, pencils, erasers, coloured pencils, hole punches, scissors and rubber bands. It is almost like an office where our dads or mums work! We pretend that we are in the office sometimes. We had the felt board out on the small table and we can make different scenes on it. There are many things that we can use e.g. people, clothes, things that belong in a house and other smaller shapes.

We started threading things onto the wire and as our teachers always tell us, in life we do not have to complete everything all in one go. People take years to complete art works; years to write books; years to build houses and we can take as long as we like to do our projects each day.

We read books in the library and then Darren read us a story called “The Great Escape from City Zoo”. Some of the words were really big and we didn’t understand them however we knew what the story was about. There were interesting pictures in black, white and grey and we had to try to find the different animals in some of them.

Shoko made her place mat at the activity table while some of us were doing our threading activity. She used coloured pencils and markers and especially loved using the stamps. She liked the ones that you could roll on the paper; they made footprints of various Australian animals e.g. koala, kangaroo, echidna, dingo etc. Our teachers will laminate it so that she can use it next week when she comes back to our class.

At last we went outside and could play in the park after many days of rain. We took toys and first we played throw and catch with the ball; then Nico achieved something great – he climbed all the way from one end to the other along that curved climbing frame. Yoohoo! Well done Nico! Shoko made a friend with a little girl who wanted to play with the colourful ball that she was holding. They ran up and down the stairs together and then came down the roller slide. They even went jogging around the park chasing each other. Then she joined in with her classmates and they played with sand toys. We all laughed a lot while we were playing outside. The fresh air is really good for us.

We want to thank Sabine for coming to be with us for the day. She always helps Ohana with so many things and we are lucky that she is Shelley’s friend and loves children.  We also met a lovely teacher from another school. She really wants to come and work at Ohana. She has been working at another preschool in Tokyo that is sadly closing and she loves teaching children, especially music. She plays the saxophone and the piano.

Wishing you all a peaceful afternoon and see you tomorrow.

Love Shelley and Darren