Welcome Hana and Lanah

Monday, February 16^th, 2015 We started off the morning doing many activities at the tables. We first looked at cars and all their components. We noticed that they have four wheels, windows, doors, lights and an engine. We tried to draw a car or truck or any vehicle that we know. Luka and Koh wanted to make a fire truck. Luka took a red marker and Koh took a blue marker. We spent time drawing and then we also made a traffic light. Some of us put the lights in different colours and some of us made many lights on the pole. Our teachers helped cut them out and paste them into our workbooks/portfolios.

At the second table, we pasted shapes that we previously cut out, onto a piece of coloured paper. We are using small spatulas lately instead of glue sticks. We spread the glue on to the shapes and placed them onto our piece of paper. Some of us completed this activity after we woke up and we will let our friends who come to school on Tuesday do it tomorrow. We need to have a lot of space at the table as we are going to be learning about Ukraine tomorrow, with Maryna.

Our gymnastics class has always most of the same exercises and games in it each week for about a month, however, every week there is also something new to learn and do. Today we did our usual warm up exercises and then we walked around our circular shaped cushions and played a “freeze” type of game. When Tanaka sensei blew his whistle, we had to stand still as a statue. The first exercise was walking around the cushions and the second one was running around the cushions. Each time we had to freeze when we heard the whistle blow. Another aspect to this game was that it became also a “musical bumps” type of game. We walked around the cushions and when we heard the whistle we had to sit down as quickly as we could. This made us a little more cautious as we didn’t want to miss out on sitting on a cushion. Our other warm up exercises also took place around the cushions……being a rabbit and hopping; being a bear and stomping; being a frog and jumping and being a crocodile and sliding around on our tummies.

We rolled on the mats sideways and walked like a penguin. When we returned from the park, we sat on the carpet and listened to a story called “The Hat”. It was a story about a hedgehog that found a woolen sock; that stuck on to its prickles and this became “The Hat”. Sadly, as is with many things in life, the other animals laughed at him, which was not very nice. In the meantime, he tried to see the positive side of life with a woolen sock stuck to your prickles. He told the animals that laughed at him that he needed to cover his head to keep himself warm during a snowstorm and that he would be warm and they wouldn’t. He tried to convince himself that it was okay to be like this but he really didn’t like the woolen sock on his head. Eventually Lisa whose sock is was, came running after him as she had been looking for the sock. He was so relieved when she took it off but then what awaited him was a real surprise. All the animals had gone to Lisa’s house and removed all of her woolen clothes from the washing line and were wearing them. His last comment to them was that animals should not be wearing clothes….which we agree with!

Tomorrow will be our first day with our cards that have our names and pictures on them. We will try to use them when we are playing and our teachers are keen to see how we will use them and how we will negotiate with our friends.

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel