Lets Exercise

 We had another very special day today in the classroom with the return of Noa from her summer vacation. Welcome back Noa. She was all smiles when she arrived and immediately said “Good Morning” to her friends and the teachers. On the carpet Ayaka set up a game with the marble track construction set. The pieces all went together well with Ayaka’s help and then they used a large fluffy dice to see who would be next to roll their marble down the twisty tracks.  Noa and Arata did a self-portrait each with pencils on the main table by looking carefully in the mirror. Ava Grace and Olivia worked a little more on their decorated stick form last week. Ava decided she wanted to color the flowered origami dress green and then couldn’t stop herself continuing until her dress, legs and shoes were all green too. Riko and Tokutaro made a new plaster hand print at the main table. It was unfortunate but Tokutaro’s previous plaster hand print had broken and so we needed to make a new one with his help. After packing away the toys and having our snacks Ayaka took the children to the library and read them a book titled ‘Going to the Dentist’ which is along the same lines as the ‘Going to the Doctor’ book we read last week. It was soon time for our new fitness program with the Japanese teacher Tanaka Sensei. The children were all so excited to see him and soon we were all ready to start. The children helped to roll up the big carpet and we began by standing up and saying “Ohaiyo Gozaimasu” (Good Morning) and “Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu” (Please accept me). Tanaka Sensei then introduced himself and we then moved to a space to exercise. We started with some stretching exercises and some counting and paper, scissors, stone gestures. Our next exercise was a little difficult but we did really well. We sat on our bottoms and put our arms out by our sides and then lifted our feet at the same time. We counted to 5 then rested for 5 as we did these. Next we tried our ‘table’ exercise where we put our hands and feet on the floor and lifted our tummies. The hardest exercise for many of us came next called ‘the bridge’. This was where we put our hands backwards next to our heads and then lifted our bodies up with our heads off the floor. This was fun for all us! Next we tried some walking and jumping like rabbits, bears and frogs. We enjoyed working as a group and then spent a few minutes giving each other ‘high 10’s, shaking hands and hugging each other. Lastly we played a cushion sitting game where we had to move to another cushion carefully so as to not hurt our friends. To end the session we all stood in a line and said “Arigato Gozaimasu” to the teacher. We all were so happy to have the opportunity to do this and look forward to next week’s session. We all helped put a tape line on the floor next and after looking at a book titled ‘The human body’ we soon realized we are all the same inside but different on the outside. When we asked the children how we are different they answered “Hair color, skin color, eye color, face and height”. Using the white taped line we then lay down and saw who was the shortest in the class all the way up to the tallest. At the end we tried seeing how tall we were using our feet to measure. Tomorrow we will see how heavy we all are. Have a great afternoon. All our Love, Darren, Ayaka and Nanako.