Washoi Washoi!

Happy Friday everyone! It was a little windy today, but it was a very beautiful day outside! We started our morning doing lots of crafts! We continued to work on our Mom’s day craft and started our Uchiwa (Fan) art project! On our sensory table, we sat down with Nimo and played with the screws and bolts as a loose parts activity! We used the screwdrivers and wrenches to put the nuts and bolts together to make our unique creations! After our free play time, we packed away our toys and practiced our mom’s day song. We made a circle and sang a few more songs before we started our circle for the day. We started by reviewing what we have been talking about this week.

M: Fruits and seeds!

Y: *Pointed at yesterday’s book* Big strawberry! The mouse needs a small one.

Nimo: Who likes strawberries?

S: I like juicy strawberry!

E: I like that one!

Y: I don’t eat anymore.

 J: The bear likes strawberries.

M: Little bear likes it too.

R: The mouse.

M: Animals.

R: And Rabbit.

We learned today, why fruits have seeds in them and are so yummy! Just like the mouse in the book and like all of us, we love to eat fruits. The plants actually want the animals to eat fruits. Just like us, after we eat, we all poo!

Nimo: Where do we poo?

E: In the toilet!

J: Doggies poo in the street.

R: Animals poo in the forest.

Some seeds make it through the animal’s body and end up in the poo. The poo helps the seeds get into the ground and start growing a new plant! Our book for today was, “Everyone Poops” by Taro Gomi. It was a silly book about how all living things poo!

L: Elephant! Big poo!

M: Mouse. It’s smaller than the elephant.

Nimo: Do you think fish poo?

J: No!

L: (Shape like a ) Rope.

S: (Bird poo) White!

E: Whale poo is soooooo big!

M: That animal looks like a dinosaur (armadillo).

J: That was a funny book.

T: *Pointed at the second book behind Nimo* One more book.

Great looking eyes T! He pointed at the next book we were going to look at today. “I Live In Tokyo” by Mari Takabayashi. It was a book about the major events that happen each month in Japan. We saw lots of pictures of events we celebrated in Petals, like Setsubun and Hina Matsuri. Our main focus today was about the Omatsuri (festivals) in Japan! Festivals are super fun events in Japan with lots of games, toys, food, and dancing. Nimo told us that next week we are going to have our own festival with the Omikoshi. He showed us a picture and we saw lots of people holding the Omikoshi. We also looked at the clothes they were wearing, we will need to bring our own hachimaki (bandanas), but the school will let us wear the Happi (festival jacket)! They were also holding an uchiwa (fan) which we worked on today!

We split up into three groups and worked on our very own uchiwa. Two tables colored in the names and cut them into small pieces and pasted them along with some stickers. After we got one side of our fan done, we moved to the other table where we used our fingers to make fingerprints. We made lots of colorful dots and our teachers will help us turn them into flowers! We also practiced our Omikoshi chant, “Washoi! Washoi! Washoi!”!

After our art project, we had our snacks then went and played at the temple. Thank you all for another fabulous week! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we will see you all again on Monday!

Love,

Petals