Happy Hina Matsuri and Happy Birthday William
We had a great start to the new week and the beginning of a new month. Welcome to the month of March.
Upstairs, we had our canvasses on one of the tables, so that we could put our final coat on them. We used white glue which is like a top coat and even though it is white when you paint it on top of something, it dries clear and transparent. We had to be especially careful when we put it on the printed pictures to make sure that they didn’t smudge. We are very happy with our 
completed products and they all depict our originality and our personalities. Many of us wanted to dress up today when we saw Noa wearing the Musketeer costume. She noticed that the picture on one of our Castle books had a Musketeer on it. So we all chose something to wear and this is what we looked like.
In the park, Tokutaro wanted to build a sand castle just like the one in our book called “The Sand Castle Contest”. When we came back from the park, we stopped to look at the Hina Ningyou which 
is the display of dolls for Hina Matsuri. Ayaka introduced us to all the different dolls on display on each of the seven steps and she explained to us what their roles are. Together we sang the Hina Matsuri song “Akari otsukemasho bonborini”.
Afterwards, we went upstairs to make our own Hina Ningyou using toilet rolls and origami paper. We took two tubes and covered them with our own choice of origami paper. Most of us chose (stereotypically), blue for the boys and pink for the girls. We used markers to put in the detail for their faces and hair. The “Ohinasama” and “Odairisama” had something special that they wore on 
top of their heads. We glued one on for each of their heads. We added a fan for “Ohinasama” and a ‘shaku’ for “Odairisama”. A ‘shaku’ is a kind of clipboard that the emperor made notes on and he sort of hid it in the belt of his kimono. When we finished decorating our Hina Ningyou, we started a new sound in our notebooks. The new sounds is from the letter “g” and we practiced writing it and we thought of words that start with a “g” sound e. g. girl, good, ghost, grandma, gold, green etc.
Downstairs, we have now truly finished all of our canvasses and are ready to display them at the 
Wine Tasting event, next week on Friday, 14th March. We are really proud of our art works and are keeping our fingers crossed that someone from our family will be there to buy ours and help raise more money for the people in Tohoku and the Philippines.
On our activity tables, we had paper tearing, flubber, bead threading, pegs and drawing. We are enjoying doing many activities each day while still having time to have free play when we arrive at school. We were sad that Taiyo and Pauline were absent today and hope that Grace, who comes to help Taiyo, is better after falling off her bicycle last week. In some of the photos you can see us 
getting something from our teachers. Well, we will explain to you what it was. Today is the actual day of Hina Matsuri which commemorates ‘Girl’s Day’ in Japan. On the day we eat ‘hinarare’ which are little bits of sweet puffed rice, in special colours which have a special meaning. The puffed rice is in green, pink and white. The green, symbolises growth and new beginnings for spring time and the word that is associated with the green one is healthy; the pink one symbolises beautiful flowers growing, which is also connected to spring and when we see beautiful flowers, the word that we think of is happy; the white of which there were many, reminds us of the clouds in the sky and sympolises peace and tranquility. We loved eating the ‘hinarare’ and 
were happy, peaceful and healthy, the whole day.
We welcomed our new friend Rama who will come to school twice a week and help in our classrooms. Today she was downstairs and we showed her most things and we like her very much. After library time, we held hands in a circle and we had a fabulous circle time and were able to sit for quite a long time, singing and listening to our teachers. We spoke about the weather and that it had been raining. Our teachers asked us: “Where does the rain come from?” Adrien said that it comes from the sky and so we learnt a few poems and songs viz. “Rain, rain go away”; “It’s raining, 
it’s pouring” and “Ame, dear ame fall from the sky”. Ame is the Japanese word for rain which Michaela knew when our teachers asked us. We also thought about the sun and whether the sun is there when it is raining. We learnt that the sun is always there during the day even if we cannot see it. We sang the song “Oh, Mr. Sun please shine down on me” and “Good morning Mr. Sun”. The reason why we cannot see the sun is because it is hiding. Where is it hiding? We were wondering!
Then we told our teachers that in the night time we can see the moon so we sang another song but this time it was a moon song viz. “Oh Mr. Moon where do you go?” We also introduced ourselves to Rama by singing our “Hello” song and singing our names to the best of our ability. Many of us are trying to sing “My name is………….”
We want to take this opportunity to say “Happy Birthday William” as it is his real birthday today. We hope you had a fun day 
William and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow so that we can wish you in person.
Tomorrow is another busy day with a little bit more travelling as we come to the end of our International Month experience. We are going to Ireland downstairs with David, who is Luka’s dad and he comes from Ireland and upstairs we are travelling to Germany, with Christine, Ava and Lilian’s mum. Thanks for a great day today everyone!
Love always, Shelley, Darren, Hisami, Ayaka, Liezel, Goh, Christine, Maryna, Sharee and Rama