Sensory Boxes

We had such a great time sharing story time with our friends in both classes today. Sometimes we have snack or lunch together but today we had story time together. Darren brought with him a book called “In Wibbly’s garden” which our friends upstairs know very well; and he also brought with him huge cards with pictures on them. They told the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” in Japanese however Darren told us the story in English. The pictures were really clear and in one of them, we saw how big the giant was compared with Jack. Jack could fit inside the giant’s tea cup! Darren read both stories to us and he had a model of a hen that laid the golden eggs and he had a finger puppet rabbit. He even had a Duplo beanstalk. We enjoy having stories told to us with props and puppets as it makes the story come alive. While we were all together downstairs, Beckett made a mobile using coloured paper and leaves. He pasted them onto an orange piece of paper and squeezed the glue bottle all by himself. Shelley will laminate them and then give Beckett the one that he made. Sophie and Tokutaro used up all the pieces of cardboard and squeezed the glue to use up all the leaves and make many mobiles. Shelley added some small foam leaves on the bottom of them.

We were so happy that Beckett and Jamie are both feeling better and could come to school today. Downstairs we are missing Miya and Gento as they were both sick today. Finn, Jamie, Beckett and Nico made Autumn leaves using coloured pastels and sparkly squeeze paints. These are works in progress and tomorrow they will do something else on them. Beckett made his picture using coloured acetate and he also completed his owl made from pinecones. Nico and Jamie added the straw to their owl’s nests.

On the second floor, we started making our sensory boxes and they are now on the shelf in our classroom. Our teachers love them so much and they really enjoyed watching us put the things inside them, that we had collected on the weekend. We had a selection of twigs, branches, acorns, stones, feathers, leaves and acorn cups. The backdrop is a picture of the sky and we have our own little world filled with nature, inside the boxes. Kana suggested that we have all of our friends inside the boxes with us and we do. Sophie’s friends are all on acorns and are sitting on a branch; Tokutaro’s friends are all on twigs in his box and Miya’s are on acorns sitting inside her fluffy cups that she found in the park.

All of our friends will make their own boxes to take home later in the month. These boxes show us the many different things that we can find in nature; their textures; their smells; the difference in how they look and we can rearrange the things in our boxes whenever we want to. The acorns are roundish and smooth; the twigs are thin and rough; the sand is soft; the rocks are hard; when we touch the feathers, it feels like there is nothing in our hand; the leaves are soft and a little crunchy; they seem to dry out really quickly when you take them out of the plastic bag; the thin branches are fragile and the pinecones feel a little prickly. Please come and look at our sensory boxes when you come to school.

Today we sang many songs while we were working. Some of our favourites were ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’, “Hello song”, “ABC song” and “When you’re happy”.

Love Shelley, Darren, Goh, Marie and Kanako