Happy Monday! Welcome to our first day of summer school! We had 7 friends today who were all here last school year. We welcomed our new teachers, Vieda and Nozomi to Buds. As we came into the room, we noticed something on the wall. It was a video of the body of water. T said, “Water!”, which sparked T’s attention as he looked at it. He then said, “Wa-wa!”. K looked so serious as he pointed, “Water! Tree!”. We can’t wait to see what was in for us today. Let’s have a fantastic time exploring this week’s theme, Life in Rivers and Wetlands.
Due to the rise in the temperature, we went to Green Space for park time earlier than usual. After doing our morning jobs, we put on our park smocks, which made some of our friends a bit upset. Sometimes a little change in our routine made us feel a little uneasy. But as big boys and big girls as we are, we were able to understand the change in our routine. We happily put our park smocks on and joined in our table activities.
TABLE ACTIVITIES
On one table, we enjoyed a lacing activity. We tried our best to put one end of the string into the holes of a picture we picked. We clapped our hands each time we successfully string one hole! Our teachers clapped their hands, too, and were proud of our accomplishment. On another table, we found long tissue rolls which we turned into logs. We put some glue on it and then spread lots and lots of brown strips of paper. This craft log will go with our song, Five Green Speckled Frogs.
PARK TIME
For park time, we went to Green Space. We had fun running around and exploring what we could see on and under the soil. And guess what we found? A rolly polly! But it was not just a rolly polly. It was a mommy rolly polly! When it flipped on its back, Brandon noticed the moving white circles around its tummy. We were all in awe as we tried to see the tiny circles. We wished that mommy rolly polly and her babies were safe, so Tamara moved them. T went to check on them and said, “Mommy!” as he pointed at their new home. As the day got hotter, we ran after the mist spray that Vieda had. It felt so good to have water mist on our head, face and arms.
STORY TIME (Grow, Grow, Grow Bigger!)
We enjoyed today’s story time through a kamishibai (paper theater). We practiced how to say, “Grow, grow, grow bigger!” and see how the picture got bigger! When T saw the pig, he said, “Oink!”. At the end of the story, E got excited when she saw the picture. She said, “Cake!”. One could imagine how excited we all got as we saw the cake got bigger and bigger. The best part was pretending to have a slice of the cake and eating it! Yum, yum, yum!
CIRCLE TIME
On the first day of our learning them about rivers, we talked about frogs. We learned a song about a frog called Five Green Speckled Frogs and tried to sing along. We liked the part where we “jumped into the pool” like the frogs! As the song goes, how the frogs like to eat bugs, we fed a puppet frog with pretend bugs and insects. E looked interested but when offered some bugs, she giggled and said, “No!”. R was a little hesitant to pick some bugs. When she saw how much fun T, K, T, S and K had fed the frogs, R joined in. At the end of our feeding activity, E found a toy snake and happily fed it to the frog! With all the bugs and insects, the frog ate, we thought it was already full, so we stopped feeding him.
Then we all got up on our feet and fed another frog! This time, it was a frog standing with a big hole in its mouth. Guess what we fed it with this time? Colorful balls!!! We had lots of fun putting the ball gently in the frog’s mouth.
Lastly, inspired by the video of the flowing water, we made our own “water”. We enjoyed painting using our hands with our friends. Vieda put dabs of blue paint on several spots on the paper, and we loved spreading the paint! It felt good to touch, tap, and squish the paint! We only did one side of the paper today and are excited to do the other side of the paper tomorrow.
We enjoyed learning a new song about frogs and are looking forward to completing our craft with this song. We are excited to hear some details about frogs as well.
See you tomorrow!
Lots of love,
Buds XOXO