Outside in the park
It was such a beautiful day so we decided to go outside and spend time playing and doing exercises in the park. The problem today was that they are redoing the surface of the ground in Amishiro Koen so we had to go to another park. Sui chan is the only one who has been there previously from the group of children who were at school today so we were all curious about where were we talking this long walk to? Eventually after crossing many streets and raising our arms about 10 times singing “Hands up, hands up, hands up, we’re crossing the street”, we arrived there. It was filled with shade in many parts and we sat down on our picnic mat, had our snack and then ran off to explore the new equipment and spaces. Noah spent a lot of time climbing on the multifaceted climbing frame and then he played with the balls. We took with the plastic colourful one and the tennis ball. Noah has great ball skills and today he learnt how to catch a ball and throw it carefully to someone. He did a great job and caught the ball many times. Finn enjoyed getting water from the tap and pouring it in the many containers that we use in the sandbox. He also hung upside down on one of the horizontal bars; he held on really tightly and then flipped himself over and stood on the ground again. He smiled with pride after doing this.
Sui chan walked around exploring all the areas in the park. She remembered the small shrine at the top of the few stairs, the Torii and the flower garden. There were workmen in this park as well; however they were just fixing the water fountain area and the benches around it. We are not sure what surface is being laid in Amishiro Koen and hope that it will be an improvement on the dark sand that is there at the moment.
In this photo Noah has his arms all ready, waiting to catch the ball. You can see that he is watching it carefully and then he will grab it and pull it to his chest. 
Nico took a long time to put his shoes on and when he was done, he ran around and spent some time in the sandbox with Sui. There is a little house in the sandbox with a table and cooking area so we had some containers filled with different foods all ready to serve to our customers. Darren always is one of the first customers and today he wanted ice cream, as it was really hot.
When we returned to school, we went to the library and read a cute story called “Chester’s Way”. It was all about a mouse who liked to do things in a certain way. Every day he ate toast with jam and peanut butter; every day he tied his shoe laces in a double knot and he always got out of bed on the same side. He had a best friend who did things the same way as he did and then they met Lily who taught them that different is okay; different is good; different is fun. We practiced singing a few songs for our party on Thursday and we are now sitting on chairs; this makes us feel so important and proud. Our teachers would love us to use our big voices when we are singing; the same ones that we use at home but some of us just keep them for home! We sang “Hello”, “I am special”, “Open them shut them” (both the correct way and the opposite way), “Ants on my arm”, “The snake is in the grass”, “Sunday, Monday….” and “There are seven days in a week”. We are looking forward to our special end of year party with our parents and friends.
Just before we had lunch we did a painting activity. We had a selection of colours and could paint whatever we wanted to. Then we took some shapes made out of tissue paper and pasted them onto the paint. They adhered to the paint really quickly as if the paint was like coloured glue. Our portfolios are “ready to go” and we are all set for the final stretch! Have a great afternoon.
Love Shelley and Darren