Fun with fabric

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We spent the morning playing with newspaper, boxes, large pieces of fabric and some furniture. Of course we had some other activities to do, however these things were our main focus. And, playing in such a creative way, inspires us more and more and we do things that amaze our teachers.

This creative energy – it gives them an outlet for expression; and every day, we are surprising them with what we think about; what we talk about; what we make; how we make things etc. Today was so much fun. Even though we have less toys out for us to choose from, in our play, what we have gives rise to so much discussion and independent thinking. Our teachers are also able to observe how we interact with our friends and how much or how little assistance we need from them.

Hisami sat with us on the floor and we played with small boxes and inside, we discovered some small pieces of cardboard. We started off focusing on the newspaper and when Hisami asked us what we wanted to make, Dev said: “An airplane”. He started to play with his air-plane and make it fly and said: “I’m going to Hawaii”. Some of us then spoke about where we want to go on an airplane. Dev told us that he is going on “JAL, Japan Airlines”. A few of us wanted to play with airplanes and so we spent time making them fly around our classroom.

While this was happening some of us took out the circular cushions and pink and purple cushions and made a stage on the carpet. We started to sing songs and made a concert. At the same time, Hisami was trying to clean the carpet because there were many small pieces of newspaper and cardboard lying around, and when she saw us singing songs, she used the small pieces of cardboard and made a microphone. You can guess what happened next! We all wanted a microphone and what happened next, was what amazed our teachers. Our voices started to have full volume and we were singing with gusto, while holding our microphones. We sang “Let it go”, “Our favourite things”, “Never give up”, “Jingle Bells”, “We wish you a merry Xmas” and “How many candles?” Shelley asked us why we need to use a microphone when we are singing. Griffin said: “It makes your voice louder. I have used a real microphone before” and Junto said: “When someone is singing and you are far away, you cannot hear the singing. But when you have a microphone, the people at the back can hear you!” We are get-ting ready for our Winter Holidays party and are so excited to show you everything. We chose what we want to do for the party and hope that everyone who comes to watch will have as much fun watching us as we did preparing.

Kai sat with some of us who were not at school yesterday, so that we could finish making our gifts for our families. We have a few more friends who still need to make theirs and then, next week we will fill them up with …………………….??????? Something that tastes nice; something that smells nice; something that looks nice! Yummmmmmm!

We are almost finished making our cards for our friends who are celebrating their birthdays in December. We never realized that December is our busiest birthday month. Luckily January is a month with no birthdays. We are looking forward to our birthday celebrations next week for our December birthday friends who are Alona, Charlie, Risako, Taiyo, Riou and Hisami. Hisami is having her birthday with Pernille and Kiki tomorrow, even though it is a little early for her actual birthday. We are looking forward to being able to celebrate with her and Ohana teachers.

We forgot to tell you yesterday that we had a fun counting and guessing activity using acorns in jars. Kai organized acorns into four jars. We made the letters A, B, C, D on them and attached them to each jar.

We had to try to count the acorns and then write the number down on a piece of paper. A and B were easy because there were only a few acorns in each but C and D were really difficult. We couldn’t count the number of acorns in them but had to guess/estimate how many we thought, were inside the jars.

You can see Kai is wearing glasses made out of newspaper. We made a few more accessories out of newspaper today and Riou made Shelley a tie, just like some of our dads wear when they go to the office.

We had a great time playing in the park because we were the only children there. We ran around in the green area and we used some of our park toys to make lines in the sand. The lines were all curvy and we pretended that they were a balance beam and walked along them carefully trying to put one foot in front of the other.

Thanks for a fun day in Flowers Class and we look forward to welcoming Meg back to school tomorrow, after a long holiday in America with her “hamani” and “habaji” and other family and friends.

Love always, all the children in Flowers Class.

Ohana International School