Hello February

We had a fun morning with our friends and teachers and welcomed in the beginning of a new month with some new songs and discussions. Shelley spoke to us about how we can talk to people without using any words. We thought that this was a little strange however when she showed us some signs with her hands, we understood exactly what she meant. She held her two hands up together and we knew that this meant “stop”; then she moved her fingers and curled them like a wave and we knew that meant “come here please”; she put her hands to her lips and we knew that meant “shhhhh…please keep quiet”. This was such fun. Then she showed us three movements; she pointed to herself, she touched her heart and then she put her hands out to us all. We were not sure what this meant. So she mouthed the words and Sophie shouted: “I love you”. We then practiced how to say “I love you” with our hands. Shelley also told us that our eyes sometimes speak too! We then sang “Love is something if you give it away”. Miya asked what the words of the song meant and Shelley told us that it is important to give our love to people and we will get some in return; this works the same for many things in life. Giving and being generous of your heart and spirit are so important. Because love and giving are the theme for this month we focused on the “heart” shape today. We looked at pink hearts and saw that some were big and some were small. We pasted them onto a red piece of paper. We sang “Five little candles” and know how to use our fingers as candles and blow them out, according to the song! We sang our “Hello” song; “Open them shut them” and we said ‘good morning’ in different languages. We did some improvisation on the mat and dramatized being different animals. We closed our eyes; Shelley waved her magic wand and we all became different animals; we were frogs, lions, dogs, cats, mice, birds, sheep and cows. Each time we made the sound that the animal makes e.g. moo for the cow, woof woof for the dog etc.

Upstairs we are still working on our Hagoita and added some gold sequin shapes, gold ribbon and gold paper to them. We looked at our dragon pictures and remembered that when it is Chinese New Year, people set off firecrackers. We made firecracker pictures using paper stars and shiny coloured foil pieces. These pieces are so shiny and sparkly; they look just like the patterns that we see in the sky when there are fireworks. We also know that the sky is dark when there are firecrackers so we used black paper for the background.

We shook the pictures afterwards so that the excess shiny shapes could fall onto the newspaper on the table. We also started singing songs that are related to love and happiness. Our song today was called “You are my sunshine”. We read “Don’t step on the crack” which we love listening to over and over again. It is a really silly book as the boy in the story turns into a pig when he steps on a crack on the sidewalk/pavement.

Outside we had fun kicking balls, digging in the sandbox, sliding and riding around.

Thanks for a great start to the month of February.

Love Shelley, Darren, Kana, Goh and Marie