Big Boxes

Wow, it was so hot today; we decided to go to the park at 9am so that we could be inside and try to keep cool for the rest of the day. This worked really well and we also kept the lights off at certain times, and the temperature in the classroom stayed quite cool for most of the day. Even at 9am we were sweating and running to our bottles to get water and rehydrate our bodies. We played some ball games in the shade under the big cherry blossom tree. Ren, Sui and Finn participated mostly in this game. Ashling and Jamie collected water from the tap in our plastic bottles and then they poured them into the containers; emptied them and filled the bottles up again. Nico also helped collect water in the bottles and then he spent time climbing on the tube like climbing frame with some of our friends. We came back to school sweaty, with pink cheeks and ready to stay cool for the rest of the day. We had a busy morning constructing things with boxes and with wood. When we first arrived at school, there were large, empty boxes scattered all over the carpet. We were so excited to discover and explore what you can do with a box and had so much fun. We all wanted to get inside them, which we did and then turned them and made them into tunnels, joined together etc. The box has been voted the number one toy for children for many years. It has endless possibilities and this is what made it so much fun for us. We sat on the mat with Darren and he drew a picture on the small white board. Finn guessed that it was a boat. Then he showed us pictures in a book and we saw a car, a train, a rocket and animals. We all decided on what we wanted to do. Renshi drew something on the small white board too and then he showed it to us. It was a robot. We thought that he would make his box into a robot but he made his into an airplane. Jamie and Ashling also made airplanes; Finn made a rocket and Sui and Nico made cars. Three children worked on their boxes on the floor and another three went to the tables to continue our woodwork from yesterday. We pasted glue onto the underside of the wooden board and then put a rectangular piece onto it; we also screwed four screws into the wooden board. This is going to be the seat of the T-stool.

We drew on our boxes; we cut out shapes from cardboard and paper and taped them or glued them onto the boxes. We spoke about what we needed to put on our boxes so that they could have the features that the “real thing” has. Ashling, Jamie and Ren needed wings for their airplanes while Sui and Nico needed wheels for their cars and of course a steering wheel too. Finn needed buttons to push for his rocket so that he could fly to the moon. Our teachers helped us cut the cardboard as it is really thick. They used a sharp knife called a Stanley knife which has many sharp blades on it and children cannot use it as it is too dangerous. After we had all worked so hard with our box constructions and our woodwork, we sat at the table and had a big surprise. On the table, there was a blender (the same machine we used when we made our fruit shakes last week), lemons, a chopping board, ice and a packet. We made lemonade to help us cool off. We put ice into the blender, lemon juice, some water and the packet of lemonade powder. The blender was so noisy that some of us covered our ears with our hands. It makes a really loud noise when it is crushing the ice.

The best part was sitting and drinking the icy drink when it was ready. Yummmmm! Shelley is going to put pictures of us drinking the lemonade on the website when she posts the journal on it. Sometimes the pictures in our journal here are different from the ones on the website. We spent some time in the library and read books on our own and then Darren read two stories. The one was called “Just me and my little sister” and it was about animal sisters. It was a cute story and on many of their pages we noticed that there was a spider. We played a game and each of us had to try to see if we could find the spider on a certain page. The second story was called “Click, clack, cows can type”. See you tomorrow for another fun summer’s day at Ohana.

Love Shelley and Darren