aka, ciro, ao

Today we learnt a lot about colours in Japanese. We started off by making a “teru teru bozu” using scrap paper, tissue paper and some other collage materials. ‘Teru teru bozu’ is a little traditional handmade doll made of white paper or cloth that Japanese farmers began hanging outside of their window by a string. In shape and construction they are essentially identical to ghost dolls, such as those made at Halloween. This amulet is supposed to have magical powers to bring good weather and to stop or prevent a rainy day. "Teru" is a Japanese verb which describes sunshine, and a "bōzu" is a Buddhist monk or in modern slang, "bald-headed"; it is also a term of endearment for addressing little boys. We made our ‘teru teru bozu’ with different coloured tissue paper as we are learning the names of colours in Japanese. We used red, yellow, white, blue and pink. We squeezed scrap paper into a ball and then covered it with a piece of tissue paper. We twisted a pipe cleaner underneath the ball and then pasted on eyes and a mouth using stickers. Our ‘teru teru bozu’ didn’t keep the rain away today however they are hanging in our classroom and we trust that they will help keep it away, during Summer School. In English if we want the rain to go away we sing “Rain, rain, go away”.

We two more Father’s Day gifts to make tomorrow and Friday and then we will have completed them all. At the third activity table we had a selection of Japanese blocks with the initial sound in Hiragana on one side and on the other side, there is a picture and the word written out in full, also in Hiragana. Ayaka sat with us and asked us if we could find certain pictures on blocks. Sometimes she used a Japanese word sometimes, she used an English word. We collected the blocks that we guessed correctly and then counted them in Japanese to see how many we had.

We read “Daruma san” again and this time, Hisami showed us what a real “daruma” looked like. Hers was blue with one white eye and one black eye. When Hisami read the book, she made the ‘daruma’ do the same actions as the one in the book did. We also tried to do the actions.

Just before we did this demonstration using coloured food dye and water, Hisami took red, yellow, green and blue Lego blocks. She took her microphone and she sang our new Japanese hello song. She asked the blocks what their names were and they answered: “Aka, ao, midori, ciro”. We sang the words of the song, just as we would when we are singing to our friends. Then we went around the circle and asked “Anata no onamae wa” and we answered. We are getting really good at knowing when to say our names. Then we all looked keenly at a tray that had three coloured Lego blocks on it and three empty small plastic containers. Hisami spoke to us in Japanese and we could understand what she was doing. She added some food colouring in each corresponding colour to the containers and then she poured water into each one separately. We watched in awe as the colour of the water changed. We first had blue, yellow and red and then she mixed the colours and we saw orange from red and yellow, purple from red and blue, green from blue and yellow. Each time we saw a new colour we opened our mouths in surprise!

You know how much we love dressing up at school. Well these are some classic photos of us……..and what do you think of our shoes?

Love always Shelley, Hisami, Nanako, Sharee, Liezel, Ayaka and Goh.