Happy 4th Birthday Lucinda
This morning when we arrived we noticed that Ayaka was not with us. Ayaka went to Hong Kong on Friday and will return tomorrow. We all miss you Ayaka. On the carpet there were two large Montessori puzzles. The puzzles show the first and second countries we have visited on our international tour so far; Australia and the United Kingdom. The puzzles are a little difficult but each one has a card diagram showing all the states, territories or countries. The United Kingdom was amongst a
map of Europe so it was a little difficult to spot on its own. Next to the puzzles was a giant skeleton puzzle made of foam. Marc said it looked like a child’s skeleton and once he and Nile had put it all together they lay down next to it and saw it was probably a teenager’s skeleton. On the table the play-dough was 
again popular with many of us making hearts with the cookie cutters. We started a special ‘secret’ card today from pink paper and origami for the 14th February….can you guess what it will be? Nanako showed us how to make a heart from the origami paper which we will put on the front of the card. After packing away all the toys it was time to celebrate Lucinda’s birthday in flowers class. We had just made a circle and then a square with our friends on the carpet when Denise (Lucinda’s mother) arrived. We all then sang our good morning song so that we all knew our friends names. Denise had very kindly 
brought along two books to read to us with Lucinda’s help. The first book was titled ‘The Pigeon needs a Bath’. This was a fun book all about a pigeon who makes lots of excuses not to take a bath , but eventually takes one and then spends ten hours in 
the bath having fun. Lucinda helped her mummy read the book and had memorized some of the words on the pages too. The second book was titled ‘I want my hat back’. We read this in library time today and it made us laugh how the bear had lost his hat and the sly fox had a hat on but none of us noticed until the very end of the book. After reading Denise helped answer some questions about the book and then we decided to sing and do the actions to “If you’re happy and you know it”. We had
some great ideas for actions and became quite dizzy with all the jumping and spinning. We then gave Lucinda a crown and a book of birthday cards from all her friends in Flowers Class. We moved to the table and Lucinda blew out the number 4 
candle on top of her snack cheese. Lucinda helped put the special sticker into the books she had donated with her mummy and even spelled her whole name out to us beforehand. Well done Lucinda!! Thank you Denise for the wonderful books. Soon it was time for our Monday gym class with Tanaka Sensei. Today we had a second teacher who will be taking over from Tanaka Sensei soon. He introduced himself as Miyashita Sensei. It is a shame to be losing Tanaka Sensei as our teacher but we also understand that ‘Things Change”. Welcome Miyashita Sensei. We warmed up thoroughly today 
with lots of stretches and balance work as well as our bridge pose. We also tried the table with one leg and one arm raised at the same time which was a little difficult. We then did some walking with the whistle blowing and counted in Japanese….soon we had to give all our friends a high five in the shortest possible time. Wen then played a game where Tanaka Sensei would count in Japanese and suddenly say “Gorilla”. We had to quickly lie down and sleep before the gorilla got 
to us. We then played a few more ‘speed games’ such as making a train with our friends as soon as possible. In circle time we reviewed how to approach a dog we don’t know and thought of some basic steps; 1. Ask the dog owner if it is okay to approach the dog. 2. Move slowly and make a fist so the dog can smell you first. 3. Pet the dog slowly and gently so as not to frighten it. We then added the Union Jack flag and stamps to our passports. We have now visited Australia and the United Kingdom. We wonder where we are going next?
Have a great afternoon. All our love, Darren, Nanako & Goh