Happy Birthday Margo

Upstairs we celebrated Margo’s birthday today as it really is tomorrow but she doesn’t come to school on Tuesdays. She is now five years old and we could see how grown up she felt. She is now the second oldest child in our class. Margo’s mum and dad came to celebrate her birthday today. Fred, her dad read a Japanese book called “Guri and Gura”. He explained the story in English so that all of us could understand it. It is about two mice that find an egg. They cook it and share it with their animal friends. They brought a delicious strawberry shortcake and we sang ‘happy birthday to you’ and “If you’re happy and you know it”. We want to thank Margo, her mum, Ryoko and her dad, Fred for coming to school and bringing us a delicious cake for our snack time. Our class had its full quota today unlike our friends downstairs and we ended up eating all of the cake with our teachers both upstairs and downstairs.

 At the activity table we looked at our favourite farm animal books and drew the face of our favourite animal on a piece of paper. In the library we read “Inside a barn in the country”. We remembered almost all of the animals in the barn and then our teachers asked us a question: “If you could be one of the animals, which one would you be?” Margo wanted to the a cat; Oliver a cow; Jamie a chicken; Jennifer a cow; Miya a horse; FJ a dog; Beckett a horse and Nico a sheep. We sang “ The cows on the farm go moo” to the tune of “The Wheels on the bus”. We included chickens in the coop, pigs in the pen, lambs in the field etc.

We went to the park early in the morning because we wanted to be back in time for Margo’s birthday party. Some of us wanted to play “What’s the time Mr. Wolf?” Oliver, Shoko, Miya, Margo and FJ played this game while some of us took care of our flowers. They looked a bit dry and even though the weather is cold, it may not rain, so Jennifer, Beckett and Shoko watered them with loving care.

Downstairs we had so many friends who were sick today. Five of them were missing so we landed up having one teacher for one child as there were three teachers and three children. We played a lot and they observed us carefully. They are preparing for our Parent/Teacher conferences so it was a good time for them to see what we can do and how much we have progressed since the beginning of the year. We climbed up a narrow section of wall in the park which was just like a balance beam. We balanced all the way up but wanted to climb down the steps as it was a little too steep for us to walk down. We spent time climbing the steps that lead up to the yellow slide and then came sliding down. Clodia and Eva walked to the park while wheeling the wagons. They had to look carefully and negotiate with poles, bicycles etc. It was fun to walk to the park like this.

 We did puzzles so that our teachers could observe our puzzle skills too. We showed them that we are competent at everything even eating all by ourselves. One of the skills that stand out most for all of us is that we like to be given independence; we like to be left alone to do things and if we want help, we will ask for it. We looked inside the feely box and took the things out of it so that we can play with them. The feely box is something that we play with, without looking inside however sometimes our teachers let us play with things in our own special way. While we are doing this they too sometimes “happen upon” something that they never thought of before. We now understand it when they say that we are teachers as well. Sometimes we are teachers at school and our teachers are the pupils…..hahahahaha! We think this is funny though.

We want to send a special wish for “Get Well Soon” to many of our friends who were not at school today. Lily, Tokutaro, Charlie, Olivia and Allie; we missed you and hope that you will be well enough to come to school soon.

Wishing everyone a great afternoon and stay warm!

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