The more we get together the happier we'll be

We were so happy to see that Iva, William and Vincent were better and could come to school today. Today was Goh san’s real birthday so we sang to her when we were all playing together in the MPR. We first counted seven fingers and then sang the days of the week song called “There are seven days in a week”; then we tried to guess whose birthday it was today. We went through all of our teachers and Tokutaro guessed correctly that it was Goh san’s birthday today and that today was Wednesday. We sang another song called “How old are you now?” and we shouted out different numbers but each time she said: “No” and then luckily we guessed correctly. When we asked her if she was five, she said yes! We clapped five and then some of us stood up and pretended to be the teacher and we counted in different languages. Beckett counted in Japanese, Shelley helped Sean with Hebrew, Clodia counted in English, Olivia counted in Spanish, Tokutaro counted (with Shelley’s help) in German and Jennifer counted in Chinese. They counted all the way up to ten. Goh san was very happy that we made her feel special today. She loves us all very much and is always so kind to us. Happy birthday Goh san!

When we were in the MPR, we played with the parachute and small cube shapes with holes in them. We bounced balls on the parachute and we lay on the floor underneath it. It was so much fun and we made such a big noise. We were all together when we went to the MPR, after we had played together in the boat. Can you believe that we could all fit inside the boat today; both classes? When we were inside the boat we sang “Row, row, row your boat” even though it is a sailing ship. We got off the boat and used markers to draw on the sides of the boat, to decorate it.

Upstairs, we read “Bob’s busy year”. Bob the builder is a construction worker and we are focusing on “Let’s Build” for our theme of the week. We also read another book called “Twiddlebugs” which is about carpenters, electricians, roofers, plumbers and painters and what they do when they build a house. We sang “One block, two blocks, three blocks four” and stacked our huge cardboard blocks on top of one another and then waited to see if they would fall by themselves or whether we needed to push them over. Jennifer managed to balance all ten blocks on top of one another without them falling over. We also sang “Old Macdonald builds a house”.

Our summer school programme is really flexible so if we want to play upstairs, we can or if we want to come down back to our old classroom, we can do this too. Lily wanted to play with us for a while and in fact, Ava spent the entire day with Lilian her sister. It was fun to have her in our class from arrival time till the end of the day. Downstairs, we read books in the library in small groups and then we sat together and sang our “Hello” song. Some of our new friends know the words of the song already, which makes us smile. We all feel proud of them. We danced and did actions to “Hot Potato” and played musical instruments to the entire CD of the Wiggles. When we were downstairs in the MPR, we held hands in a circle and did actions e.g. turn around, wink your eye, nod your head, clap your hands, stamp your feet etc.

In both classrooms we decorated our cardboard cars and drew on them using markers and crayons. Some of us were able to identify the lights which we small circles; there are even windscreen wipers on the front windscreen. Upstairs, Darren only showed us the back of the cardboard and we tried to guess what it was from the shape. Jenny guessed that it was an octopus; Tokutaro thought it was another boat; Lily thought it was a fish and when Darren turned it around…..Bingo, it was a car!

Our teachers had to glue the cars together so some of them may not be dry enough to go home. We will be able to take them home on Friday for sure.

Wishing you all a wonderful afternoon and see you tomorrow or Friday.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine