The Tanabata Story

It’s pouring, it’s raining. What shall we do? For Buds class, it is always a good day to play and sing songs with our friends. We definitely love spending these calm and quiet moments. By the way, it is already July and time really flies so fast. We also noticed that we’re growing up. Ritsuka came early and she greeted her teachers with a wonderful “good morning.” She did her morning jobs and she instantly went to our morning activity tables and started working on the connecting blocks. And then, Yurika arrived and did the same. She liked the hammering activity. She simply used it with such dexterity. Then, some of our friends already came and they decided to go to the circle time area and got some Lego blocks. They made a castle and simple train tracks for a while. One of our special activities for today was making the tanzaku. We saw the canvas on the table and we also saw some green paint mixed with the glitters. Some paintbrushes and rollers were there too. Thus, we put on our smocks and sat on our chairs and began painting on the canvas. Sofia said, “Wow! It’s green! I want to use the paintbrush.” Yurika chose to use the rollers but every now and then, she dipped her hand in the paint and made some handprints. We are actually making a bamboo tree so having many different patterns of paint was absolutely incredible. Yuu-kun was so glad to move his rollers to and fro. He had made such fantastic scribbles on the canvas. Alexandre came and sat by the table as well. And then, he requested to get the roller and dipped it in the paint. He was also showing a big grin when he was painting. He seemed to be very settled in Buds class now. And we are so proud of his confidence and comfort with his teachers and friends. Ritsuka was trying to copy Sofia’s painting design and she managed to do some small and simple patches. After painting, Sofia got some pegs and peg holders. It was quite amazing because she just made a boat and put the pegs around it.

During our circle time, we danced and got our friends hands. We went round and round until it was time for us to sit down and listen to our lesson. First, we sang the hello and weather songs. Sofia and Kaia knew the different types of weather and they also told us what the weather was like today. They said that it was rainy. And then, we sang “Rain, rain, go away”. We saw our ABC book and we learned about the letter J – J is for jacket, jeans and jar.

Sayaka told us a story about the Tanabata. It was about “Orihime” who fell in love with Hikoboshi. Hikoboshi was a caretaker of the cows. But when both of them met, they forgot about their jobs and spent most of their time together. Hence, the God of sky, who happens to be Orihime’s dad, decided to separate them and they could only meet one another for once a year which was July 7^th. This is currently the celebration of Tanabata. Thank you so much Ohana for the wonderful learning experience once again. See you all again tomorrow!

Lots of love,

John, Sayaka and Nanako