Grandparents Jackie and Kevan visit Ohana
What a difference a day makes? Today truly was an amazing day. Downstairs we had the pleasure of meeting Clodia’s grandparents, Kevan and Jackie who spent the entire morning with us inside the classroom and outside in the park. They prepared an array of activities for us to do which we will tell you all about here. They always enjoy reading our journals when they are in England, because 
that is where they live. And while they were preparing to come to Japan, they read in our journal that Clodia’s class are learning all about our senses. So they set about preparing activities and things to do that involve our senses. Our senses are sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.
We all stood together in a circle and did an action song. We then sat down on the mat and taught Kevan and Jackie our “hello” song which they learnt really quickly. Our first activity was with our sense of sight. We looked through long rolls and tried to hold them up to one eye. We could see our friends and all the things that are in our classroom. After that we looked through magnifying glasses and noticed that everything looked bigger. When our friends and teachers looked at us, the eye that was looking through the magnifying glass 
looked enormous. Like a giant eye! The next sense that we learnt about was our sense of touch. We made a feely box during the week and felt many different things inside it. We felt things that were soft, rubbery, prickly, hard, round, smooth etc. Inside the box was a ball, scourers for cleaning really dirty pots and pans, a fluffy rubbery ball, a soft sheep etc. We blew on blowers that had the Union Jack on them. When we blew the blue part unrolled and became long and made a noise as well. Some of us are still learning how to blow with our mouths.
We used our noses to smell a variety of different things that were inside glass containers. There was HP sauce, baby powder, cinnamon, coffee, ginger, cocoa and one of them we were not sure of. We also did a tasting while we were having snack time. We tasted a salty, crunchy potato crisp, a sweet and chewy jelly baby, dried crunchy banana which was 
sweet, and fizzy popping candy. When we put the fizzy, popping candy on our tongues, it made a popping noise and it crackled and it tickled our mouths and it was such fun and also surprising. They were so kind to us and made so many things, some of which we will do next week as an activity with our teachers. They also gave us a gift of candy and a card which our teachers will give to us on Monday. We want to say a huge thank you to Kevan and Jackie for everything. We loved having them in our class today and want to keep them at Ohana forever!
Upstairs we did an amazing 3d activity using junk art. We had to create an animal using plastic bottles, CD’s,
yoghurt cups, wooden sticks, toilet rolls etc. We are doing many activities involving animals and started off the day using plasticine and looking at books with animals that live on a farm. Jamie showed Jennifer how to make a snake. We also practiced our earthquake and fire drills and remembered to cover our mouths if there is a fire and go under the table if there is an earthquake. We have to walk down the steps when there is an emergency and did this slowly and carefully. We made a list of five things that we need to do if there is a dare; call out ‘fire” to your teachers, family and friends; close the windows and doors; leave the room; cover your mouth and take the stairs. Darren blew the whistle and we practiced these drills.
In our circle we spoke about animals that live on a farm and made a long list of the ones we could think of e.g. pig, cow, horse, sheep, chicken, duck, goose, donkey etc. We sang “Old Macdonald had a farm” and read the book that has the same name. We chose different junk art materials to make our animals as you can see from the photos here. Wishing you a great weekend.
Love always Shelley, Darren, Ayaka, Nanako, Sabine, Goh and Christine