How much do we weigh now?

There were lots of Montessori activities on the carpet this morning which the children immediately spotted. Tokutaro, Ava and Arata headed straight for them and saw that they were number based activities. The first one involved arranging red and blue rods in the correct order to make numbers. The second activity used n=beads and hooks which have wooden numbers too. The idea is to count the number of beads on a string and hang them on the appropriate hook. Then you need to match the hooks and beads with the corresponding wooden number. It was a little harder than we expected but were pleasantly surprised to see Arata do so well and complete it very quickly. On the main table the play-dough was again very popular and many of us used the new modelling tools to make interesting textures in the play-dough. Next to us on the table was a beading activity with lots of colored beads and string. It was a good exercise for our little fingers to make bracelets. Riko and Eito preferred t do some alphabet puzzles on the carpet while Ava and Olivia played a game called ‘Speedy Fingers’ where we had to copy a pattern of small balls with colored counters. It was contest and Tokutaro was so happy to win the first round. After snack time we headed to the park early as today was our second Japanese fitness program with Tanaka Sensei. In the park we used some new shovels and were digging for dinosaur bones.It was great fun exercising and we did some of the same routines as last week but added a few new ones at the end of the session. We started with our Japanese greetings and stretching and then jumping like rabbits and frogs which we all love. We then tried some balancing on one leg while counting to 10 in Japanese. We then tried the other leg and counted again. We then tried our table and bridge poses which we are getting quite good at. We then tried a listening and exercise activity where we walked and when we heard 1 whistle we all sat down. When we heard 2 whistles we had to find a partner and sit down with them facing each other and holding hands. We then did a fun exercise where we put all the cushions on the floor in a circle. We then pretended the cushions were big stepping stones in the river and there was a big crocodile in the water so we had to step carefully from one cushion to the next. We then tried this on our hands and knees until we had all had a turn. After exercise time we got out the weighing scales and all had a turn standing on them to measure our weight. We were surprised to see the numbers go so high as most of us were around 3 kilograms when born but are a lot more than that now! We wanted to see how heavy our friends are and so we then paired up to see if we could lift our friends back to back. We had to be careful and keep our legs straight so that we didn’t all end up on the floor in a heap. It was a lot of fun today!! All our Love, Darren, Ayaka and Nanako