Building towers together

Today we remembered that the park across the street was “out of bounds” so once again we all walked to the small park up the road from Nissin. It was a long ”trek” however going there we had a lot more energy than we had when we were coming back. We were dragging our feet across the sidewalk all the way back to school. We had a wonderful time at the park today and our friends from the Japanese school also came to play there as well as some other small children. Once again we shared our toys and had fun with water, climbing on the climbing frame, playing with the balls, using the bars to hang from etc. Shoko was at school today and she is so independent and explored the park happily with all of us. On the climbing apparatus there is a “swing bridge” that is a little wobbly. We have to steady ourselves so that we can balance and feel safe. Some of us walked across it really slowly and we got to the other side. There is also a short climbing wall with handles for our hands and feet and Renshi initially said that he was scared and couldn’t come down. Of course he could! Shelley told him to turn around and climb down backwards and this made it so much easier.

In the morning we spent time on the mat with our teachers and our friends. Renshi played with the dice. He and Shelley had turns to throw the dice and see who got a higher number. Renshi has a lucky hand and he beat Shelley many times. Finn and Renshi played with the peg board together. They tried to build the tallest tower using the different shapes. Because we all know that it is easy to knock a tower down with your hand, they tried to blow their towers with their breath. They had to blow really hard and eventually…..boom bang crash, the towers fell down. Then together they moved to the Lego box and decided the build a house for the robot. They had to find certain shaped blocks and eventually put the roof on. Finn said that it was a little hard to get the robot out and so he looked for a piece of Lego that he could use to help him maneuver it out. Nico spent time at the white board and then he came to the mat to play with us.

We have a new display board in the classroom that is called ‘I can’. On there are great photos of us and lots of words. The words have messages on them, all about the things that we can do. Our teachers are adding more things because every day they see us doing new and exciting things. We feel proud of ourselves. Darren printed and designed the photos for us and we love seeing ourselves on the board too.

We did painting at the activity tables, with a difference. We used little pippets and squeezed drops onto the paper and we also had spoons to spoon some onto our pages. We could blow the blobs on the paper or life our paper up and let the paper drip all over it in various patterns. We did pastel drawing at the office table too.

We read books in the library and didn’t have time to practice for our party on Thursday. We know the songs however because we come to school on different days, we are not used to singing together with everyone. We will do one more short practice tomorrow and our teachers always believe that even if we know the songs, on the day of the party, we may or may not use our big voices. They keep on reminding us that our families are coming to listen to us, and not to them singing. Mmmmmmm???? We think that maybe they will have to hear our teachers sing too. We are so excited for the party for many reasons; James is coming to spend the day with us as we didn’t have proper closure and say goodbye to him when he left in March; we are having a pizza party afterwards; we are getting a present; our families will be with us.

We hope that everyone has a relaxing afternoon and has some time to play outdoors because the weatherman says that tomorrow it is going to rain.

“It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring……..”

Love Shelley and Darren