Celebrate good times, c'mon!

The pace of our day today was completely different from yesterday and we were so excited to be able to celebrate one of our friends’ birthday with his mum, at school. We started off his party singing “When you’re happy and you know it” and Io and some of our friends helped us choose actions to perform. We jumped, stamped our feet, turned around, kicked our legs, shouted happy birthday, mouthed happy birthday and whispered happy birthday. Io first had to put his crown on and he chose a friend to do this.

We were not 100% sure how old he is so we sang “How old are you now?” and he told us that he was five years old. Then we held up five fingers on one hand and we sang “Five little candles” and each time we blew one out until there were zero candles left.

His mom read us a story after we gave him his card, that we made. The story was called “A bad case of Rainbow Stripes”. We had a wonderful selection of birthday treats for snack time. There were marshmallows, gummy candy, mikan, nashi and grapes. Thank you so much Rie san for coming to school to celebrate Io’s 5th birthday with us and for the delicious treats!

Earlier in the day, we continued working on our Christmas Cards however we were not sure who we were making them for.

Everyone, Io, Santa, Mommy and daddy and my baby

Each time, Shelley shook her head and then she told us a story so that we could understand who we are making the cards for and why. We actually contributed to the story by making comments. This is how it went:

Once upon a time, the earth was shaking so much.

We fell down; It’s an earthquake.

Shelley: What do we do when there is an earthquake?

Go under the table; Go outside; Go to Nanzan shogakko; You’re quite right because that is our evacuation place; Also we cover our mouth

Shelley: When do we cover our mouth?

For a fire; Because we don’t want smoke

And Shelley continued:

When the earth was shaking, so too was the ground underneath the ocean and it made a huge wave. The wave then came to the land and what do you think happened?

The house got washed out; If we’re near the sea, the water comes

Well the big wave was coming and the people had to run to try to get higher and climb up to the mountain. Do you think everyone could run?

Not ojichan maybe

Shelley: And what do you think happened to the people who couldn’t run?

All: They died

Many people died and many people were saved and some of them couldn't find their houses any more because the big wave had washed the houses away. Now many of them have new houses and they have clothes and a school and food and friends. Every year the children, teachers and families at Ohana International School make Christmas Cards to remind the people that we will always remember them. This is why we are making the cards.

Children: Oh!

Today we added a photo of us in kimono or hakama depending on whether we are a boy or girl. We wrote our name on the page with our photo and then we pasted “Merry Christmas” in English and Japanese. At the back we pasted an Ohana International School sticker so that the children know the gifts and cards, come from us and we go to Ohana International School. The cards are beautiful and maybe we can make some more for our families!

Playing in the park was wonderful especially since the weather was beautiful. We enjoyed lots of soccer.

Another activity that we did this morning was matching opposite puzzles. The one box was filled with people and their jobs and the other one was more general. On the floor we did a big airplane puzzle with huge pieces and on the small white shelf we started a 100 piece of puzzle of an airport. Our teachers can’t keep up with our hunger for doing puzzles with hundreds of pieces.

Thanks for a great last day of this week. We are excited to learn from our parents all about their discussions with our teachers tomorrow and Friday at the Parent Teacher Conferences. We won’t come to school for our regular school day tomorrow but some of us may see our friends because we have signed up for baby sitting during the conference.

OXOXOXOX Flowers Class children