What are our hands for?

We are almost back to our “old” rhythm at school and have all settled back so well. Today we welcomed Noa, Emily and Sophie and they too have grown such a lot since the end of the last school year. Downstairs, most of us still need our nap time and even though we have not all slept this week, we enjoyed resting and then reading books while some of our friends still slept. After a long busy day at school, we are lucky to have a rest. We think that our teachers would love to rest too but…………..

Today we did a lot of cooking downstairs, engaged in imaginative play with our friends and teachers. We love preparing meals, washing the dishes in the sink, laying the table and generally being in the kitchen. Our teachers are really happy as we are also very good at tidying up. We can almost remember where everything belongs and even our little friend Vincent who started school for the very first time on Monday, has been packing away the toys. It is fantastic to see how our little friends learn from us just in the same way that we learnt from our older Ohana “senpai” last year.

 We sang a song about different parts of our bodies and what they do e.g. What are my ………..for? We sang about our eyes, ears, mouth, hands and feet. We said our eyes were for looking; our ears were for listening; our mouth is for eating things; our legs are for walking and our hands are for picking up toys. For some of the answers our teachers had to prompt us as one of our friends said that “ears were for cooking”. The other songs that we sang were “Hello”, which is a song we sing each day where we all have to say “My name is …………….” when we are asked “What is your name?” We also sang songs with actions related to our feelings which you can see in some of the photos here. One of them shows us surprised and the other shows us sleepy. We played at the activity tables with play dough and then gravitated almost immediately to the mat where we took out the small blocks that have our photos on them. Shelley printed one for Ava and Vincent so now their faces are also on the blocks. We discovered that we have some plastic people which are fun to use when we are building with the blocks. Outside in the park we learnt how to use the water spray which helps keep us cool in the hot weather. When we spray our friends they close their eyes and wait for the water to sprinkle on their faces.

   Upstairs we started off our day with cork boards, hammer, small nails and wooden shapes. Each shape has a small hole in it where the nails go and we hammered the nails into the cork boards. We made beautiful designs with them and of course are reminded about the names of the different shapes.

During library time, we re-read “Five little monkeys” and then counted five in English and Japanese. Then we counted how many hands five little monkey have and the total was ten. We sang “What can we do with our hands?” and then had a discussion about what we use our hands for. Noa – writing your name; Miya – eating; Shoko – putting on your shoes; Jennifer – painting; Sophie – we put our hands up when we cross the street; Emily – playing; Oliver – scratching; Beckett – drawing; Nico – banging on a drum.

We have a beautiful poem about hands and what they can do. It is amazing to see all the different things that we can do with our hands. We thought that we had exhausted the list with our comments during our discussion however there were still so many more. We read the book “Hands, hands, fingers, thumb” and while Darren was reading the story we joined in and did the different actions e.g. drumming with our thumbs; picking fruit; playing a banjo; holding hands;

playing a fiddle etc. At the activity table we did hand prints on white paper and put the beautiful poem together with our printed hands. Then on two giant hands, we put our finger prints. Our teachers will add our comments to the giant hands when our finger prints are dry.

Thanks so a wonderful day everyone.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Christine, Goh and Ayaka.