Happy Birthday FJ

Today was a very special day; something nice came my way! It was a special day because it was FJ’s birthday and she turned five years old. The whole school were fortunate enough to celebrate her party with her mum, Jocelyn and a feast of cupcakes and party hats.

 FJ and Nico decorated her crown together covering it with lots of stickers and drawing on it with colourful markers. All of our friends in Darren and Ayaka’s class traced our names on the light box. We used our large flashcards with our names on them and put white paper over them. We could see the letters clearly as the light from the light box made them so bold. We could trace our names as many times as we wanted to and using whatever colours we wanted as well.

In the library we read “We are all alike…….we are different”. We discussed how we all have different hair colour, different lengths of hair, different hairstyles, different colour of our eyes, different shape of our eyes etc. We even have likes and dislikes that are different. We asked our friends the question: “What kind of food do you like?” We all had so many thing that we liked and some were similar and some were different. These are some of the things that our friends like to eat – egg sandwiches, sushi strawberries and natto were some of Margo’s favourites; grapes, peaches, sushi were some of Shoko’s favourites; Jamie likes corn, apples and strawberries; FJ liked chocolate ice cream and hot dogs; Jennifer liked raspberries, pizza, cheese, strawberries and Nico liked bananas and yoghurt.

At FJ’s party we sang “If you’re happy and you know it” and we all contributed our suggestions to the song e.g. clap your hands, stamp your feet, blink your eyes etc. Jocelyn brought FJ’s favourite story to read to us. It is called “The Gruffalo”. Some of us know the story and love it too. We gave FJ her gift that we all made for her and she and her mum held the string up for her to see all of the beautiful hearts that we had made. Our treats included apple juice, cupcakes and party hats. We want to say a big thank you to Jocelyn and FJ for the lovely party today and for being so kind and generous to us all.

After the party, we looked at the wall display and did some of the actions that are written there. We played a drum with our hands and a piano and guitar and with our feet, we jumped and marched. We then spoke about what we can do with our mouths. We said eat, whistle, talk, blow a kiss, blow the wind, blow bubbles and then Darren took out some bubbles and blew them into the air. We had to try to keep our hands behind our backs and blow the bubbles up into the air as they came down. Popping bubbles with our hands is so tempting so it was a bit tricky for us to refrain from doing so. We did a great job of blowing them up into the air and some of them flew up to the ceiling where they popped. Then Darren gave Nanako the people remote control. This is a special remote control that tells people’s bodies to do many things. The remote control told us to stand up, sit down, eat an ice cream, swim, ride a bicycle and go to sleep. It was such fun!

 Even though we didn’t go to the park today we had a full and fabulous day at school. Downstairs we spent time dressing up; using wigs, clothes and accessories for this and we also had fun playing the piano. Our activity that Shelley planned for the beginning of the week has been delayed a few times and she hopes that tomorrow we will sit with her a do it, one at a time. We played with finger puppets at the table and also did some cooking and eating! We love imaginative play and our teachers have time to observe us with our friends. They can see how we play co-operatively; whether we share or not and how we help one another. We are quite good at packing away however the mobile phones sometimes become an issue as we all want the one with the picture on it. We are not so interested in the real ones that do not work anymore. Thanks for a fun day.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Christine, Nanako, Sabine, Ayaka and Goh.