Being kind to our friends

We had a lovely morning playing outside first and having a picnic snack in the park. Our teachers were worried about the weather because the sky was grey and dark so we headed out early and enjoyed having the entire park to ourselves.

We sat on three different picnic mats and had some intimate time in small groups with our friends. Usually we all sit together however it was fun to be able to sit with a few friends, eat, chat and then go off and play.

You can see from our faces, how happy we were. We have been quite adventurous with our climbing skills; on the climbing wall going up to the slide, on the other wall that has openings for our feet and finding our way on the twisty climbing structure. We love being taller than our teachers so most of us try to climb to the highest point. Today Lilian wore beautiful butterfly wings to school which she wore the entire day. When we were in the park, she hung upside down on the monkey bar with her wings on and Koh chan wondered what she was doing. So he bent down next to her and asked her: “What are you doing?” to which she answered: “Hanging upside down”.

Our teachers always smile when they see us helping one another, showing consideration to our friends, caring for one another and being kind. When we were leaving the park, William B and Daiki took Taiyo’s hand and walked with him to hold the rope. They did this without anyone asking them, which was even more precious. Thanks for showing your kindness to your friends William B and Daiki.

Before we went to the park, Lilian, Vincent and Miyu completed another 54 piece puzzle. This one was a jungle scene and when the puzzle was completed, we had to look for certain objects inside the puzzle. This was really difficult as the objects are small and blend in with the whole picture. We have now completed our self portraits which are on display with our “name stories”. We did our first cutting activity today and most of us were able to manipulate a pair of scissors with skill and control. When we were sitting on the mat in our morning circle, we looked at a piece of paper that had some lines on it. Shelley asked us if we knew the names of the shapes and lines. We said one of them was a straight line, one was a circle and one was a zigzag. We stood up just like a straight line which is also called a vertical line. We did movements with our body to represent the lines and shapes. It was a bit tricky with the zigzag so we made a movement with our arms to symbolize a zigzag pattern. Then we went to the tables and cut out the shapes. When we were finished, we pasted them into our portfolios. Usually our teachers paste everything into our portfolios but now, we are big enough to do it on our own.

After we had completed our cutting activity many of us wanted to draw and then Hisami did some origami with us. On our way back from the park, we heard the noise of the cicadas. They sound really noisy and the interesting thing about their noise is, that it signifies, the end of their lives; as they only live for a few weeks above the ground. Most of their life is spent under the ground. In fact some cicadas can live for between 13 to 17 years under the ground. We think that it must be dark for them and hope that they have flashlights to see.

So Hisami taught us how to make cicadas with origami paper. Alexis helped us make long curly eyelashes for them. We are still enjoying our sensory experience with rice, feathers, marbles, spoons and cups. We played a matching game at a small table with three friends and one of our teachers. When it was our turn, we lifted up two round discs and looked to see if the pictures underneath matched. The first things that we tried to match were different kinds of fruit. Then we had vegetables, hand prints and circles in different colours. We tried to remember where the matching pictures were and sometimes looked at our teacher to see if they would tell us; but they wouldn’t tell us!

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel.