Sun catcher and Seasons
“Rain rain go away,
come again another day,
all the children want to play,
rain rain go away.”
We started the week with another rainy day and some of our friends think that we are in the fifth season called the ‘Rainy’ season. Our theme of the week is ‘How’s the Weather, Reporter?’ We hope to have more than just rainy days but we will just have to see…
Today, our friends from Petals class came upstairs and we were all excited to begin the week with our new friends. Miyu was the first one to come to class along with Kenichi who did their jobs without any help. It didn’t seem like it was their first day up in the big friends’ class. Hana and Taiyo were at the science table, using the 
magnifying glasses to look at the differently shaped leaves. When Nanako said that one of the leaves looks like a heart, Hana replied and said, “And this one looks like a flower.” 
Dominik patiently worked on sorting different colored shapes into orange, blue, red and yellow cups. At the big table, we made suncatchers. On one of the cupcake molds, we carefully placed transparent plastic pony beads to make a circle shape and on another mold, we placed nontransparent ones.
Then our teacher took the cupcake tray into the oven to grill it for five to ten minutes. Some of us liked the smell of the plastic beads melting while others didn’t find it pleasant. So our teachers made it sure to keep the windows all open. We couldn’t wait to
see the beads coming out of the oven - later our teachers will make a hole in each suncatcher so we will be able to hang it by the window waiting for the sunshine to come out again.
For the morning circle time, since it was the first time for Miyu, Hana, Dominik, Taiyo and Kenichi to be in this classroom, we sang our Hello song and we played a Japanese handgame called ‘Hanasakan’ with Nanako before we could go wash our hands. There are some things that are the same in Petals class and other things are different. For example, in the big friends’ class, we may have more morning jobs to do such as signing in our names. With the help of teachers and friends, our new friends are already settling in so nicely.
We all love to go to the park and we can’t wait to run around the green court. But for today, we played a few games so that we can move our bodies indoors. Our first game was musical chairs and our selected music was “Singing in the Rain”. We practiced a couple of times with the same number of chairs as the number of friends. But soon, our teachers took one chair away at a time and we realized that we had more number of friends than the chairs. Kenichi, Kai and Hana were the last ones to stay. And in the end, Kai got the last chair! Well done Kai and everyone!
The next one was the handkerchief game - one of our friends has to go around the circle to drop a handkerchief behind anyone of us. If someone has been selected, the friend who dropped the handkerchief 
has to quickly run back to her/his spot before the friend with the handkerchief catches him/her. Sometimes, we forgot to check our backs for the dropped handkerchief but it was a good activity to learn how to wait for our turns. Our last game was "Stop and Go" which is a dancing activity that Nanako likes to do in her ballet class. This activity is a bit like the freeze dance only. We listen to different types of music and move our bodies accordingly - we became tall grasses, flying birds, soldiers, drummers and alphabet shapes. We were all so exhausted after so many movements!
Just before lunch time, Nanako read a book called The Tiny Seeds by Eric Carle
and we talked about the four seasons. When Nanako asked how many seasons we have, Miyu answered, “We only have the rainy season.” Her answer made the teachers all laugh because we could understand how our friends might think that the rainy days are never ending. Then some of our friends answered, “snowy,” “sunny” and “windy.” Nanako explained that these are all the weathers and not the seasons. To help us understand better, we made "four-season pet bottles" with things that we see in each season. In the fall bottle, we put some yellow 
pompoms, orange leaves and acorns; in the winter bottle, we put red and golden Christmas ornaments and snowy flour; in the spring bottle, we put pink flower petals and pink pompoms, and in the summer bottle, we put sand, marbles and shells.
After we learnt the difference between weather and season, we talked a little bit about ‘thermometer’ and how it measures the temperature. Our teachers prepared a piece of paper entitled ‘My Weather Chart’ onto which we can record the weather and temperature when we come to school. Tomorrow, we will learn about how to dress ourselves in different weathers. Don’t forget to wear your rain boots and rain coats on a wet day!
Please keep dry and enjoy the afternoon!
All our love, Nanako, Maki, Liezel, and Bill