Fishing & welcome Jen

Today we welcome Jen to our classroom for the morning. Jen is our new volunteer on Thursday mornings and has a daughter Sofie in ‘Buds’ class who is 2 and a half years old. Thank you Jen, it was great having you with us today. On the main carpet there were lots of musical instruments all set up including an electronic piano, an accordion, two recorders, a harmonica and a play guitar. We made lots of noise with the instruments and many of us tried the electronic piano with our friends too. On the table there was a new game set up with lots of little faces on it. The game was called ‘Who’s left’? First Tokutaro and Olivia wanted to play and then Eito and Adam came along and wanted to play too. The aim of the game was to first select a card and keep it hidden from the other player. We then had to describe one feature of the face on the card such as having blonde hair, wearing a hat or glasses etc. Using this information we could then eliminate the other faces until there was only one left. We could then check if we were right. On the main table Olivia wanted to do some painting and did a nice flower painting while Adam did a nice self-portrait. Next to the painting things we had the chance to practice our cutting skills with some wiggly scissors. We could choose which ones we wanted to use and then cut some colored paper which we then glued onto a white piece of paper. On the carpet Ayaka showed us how to tell our right from our left playing twister. It was a little difficult at first but we soon got the hang of it. This was lots of fun. After packing away the toys we sang our good morning song and had our yummy snacks. Starting our circle we sat Jen the new volunteer teacher on the special white chair and she introduced herself. She told us how her name is actually the same as Jennifer’s and that her home town is Manila in the Philippines. She came to japan 3 years ago and lives with her husband and daughter Sofie. She likes to bake cookies and cakes as well as read books. Her favorite songs at the moment are ‘The wheels on the Bus’ and ‘Old MacDonald had a farm’ On Wednesday’s Jen goes with Sofie to the zoo to see lots of animals. Ava asked her “how old are you”? and Jen answered “36”. Marc asked “Where do you live”?-Moto Azabu near the mushroom building”. Next it was time for Olivia ‘Show and Tell’ and she brought along 4 wonderful photos taken in Miami as well as a beautiful shiny trophy. Olivia told us how she went fishing in Miami and won the trophy for catching 3 big fish. Olivia showed us all the 4 photos one by one. The first photo showed Olivia receiving her trophy, the second showed her fishing next to a fisherman, the third showed us Olivia with a fish she had caught hanging on the line and the last one showed us Olivia proudly holding her trophy. She then answered some great questions such as Ava-“What kind of fish did you catch”?-“We didn’t know the name but it swims well”, Marc-“Where did you live”?-“At my grandma’s house” Toku-“How did you catch the fish”?- “We waited very patient”. We all thanked Olivia and gave her a big clap for her performance. Next we read a book called ‘Don’t give up’ which we have heard the song for. In the book it shows a little girl trying to build a sand castle but it keeps on getting broken but she doesn’t give up. We were soon dancing to the song too and made up our own marching and jumping actions to go with it. We then decided to do some faster movement with a ‘magic’ remote control which controls our bodies. We did some running on the spot, some rolling, jumping, eating ice cream and swimming actions which was fun. We want to make our own remote controls tomorrow morning. Just before lunch time we did some yoga poses such as the table, the tree, the bridge and the candle before calming down with a few deep breaths. We couldn’t go to the park today unfortunately because of the rain but had a very energetic morning nonetheless. Have a great afternoon. All our love, Darren, Ayaka & Jen