Raccoon and frog "role play"

Today was so hot outside that when we came back to school, after washing our hands and wiping our faces, we lay on the floor with cushions and had a few minutes of quiet restful time. Then Darren did Yoga with us and we were able to do all of the poses that he showed us. We did six poses today viz. The do nothing doll; Dog; Mouse; Cobra; Squirrel and Table. We enjoyed Yoga and look forward to many more times where we can practice our deep breathing and learn new poses. We started off our day with a wonderful “role play” game so that we could learn how to share and do things that are socially acceptable at school and in life in general. The reason for this is that sometimes we find it had to share our toys; so Shelley called in the “frog” and the “raccoon” for some help and good advice. The frog and the raccoon are puppets that sit in our library and spend their day listening to us talking and watching us reading. They see different children in the afternoons too and they learn a lot each day, from everyone. Well, Finn was playing with a toy and the frog wanted it, so he grabbed it. Of course, Finn knew that this was not the correct way to behave so he told the frog that he can play with it later. The frog understood this really well and found something else to play with. Then the raccoon who hadn’t been paying attention to the previous incident, grabbed a toy from Noah! Oh no! Noah had to tell the raccoon to wait his turn and he told him that if he wants something; he needs to use his words. The raccoon started to cry and we just shrugged our shoulders. He stopped crying and waited for Noah to finish playing with the toy and then Noah was really kind, and he gave it to the raccoon. The frog and raccoon taught us so many things today and they even sat with us in our morning circle and snack time. During library time., they sat on our laps while we were listening to the story.

The story that we read today we have read before and today we read it together with our friends and teachers. It is called “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” The brown bear sees a red bird and the red bird sees a yellow duck etc. Reading together helps us learn how to read words and it is also a part of working together and co-operating. It seems as if there is not enough room to share everything that we do at school each day. We try to share the things that we think are important though and hope that everyone enjoys reading the journal each day. Tomorrow we are so excited as our little friends Tokutaro and Gento are coming to school for their trial day and next week they will start to come to school regularly. We will help them and teach them whatever we can and we know that they will be happy and learn a lot each day.

Love Shelley, Darren and Kanako