Beginning sounds
Some of us just love making things with junk art and upstairs Noa and FJ wanted to make some more things today. Noa started to make a train and she joined together a whole lot of rings which would be the boiler on an old steam train. FJ taped some tubes together to make a rocket. 
While they were working at the table, Nico and Beckett were playing with the car transporter and loaded it up together with cars. Andres Felipe used the Kapla blocks and made a building.
In the library we read “The Boomerang Race” and “The Wheels on the Bus”. During circle time, we once again set up the chairs to look like we were on an airplane. Our teachers asked us where we would like to go on the airplane: Jennifer – Nana and Grandpas house in England; Nico – The Philippines; Beckett – Boston, America; Andres Felipe – Africa (pointing to the scorpion on the map on the wall); FJ – Australia. We then rolled the dice to see who would be the pilot of the airplane and who would be the flight attendant. Sean was the pilot and Nico was a flight attendant. We all boarded the imaginary airplane and Nico went around looking at our boarding passes, saying: “Tickets please!” He then showed us to our seats and served us drinks and then he offered us chicken or fish for our meal. We sang and did actions to a Wiggles song about an airplane. It went like this:
“Fly through the air
The trees are far below
Fly through the air
And feel the soft breeze blow”
Our phonics activity today was a review of “s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e” and we were introduced to a new sound and letter called “h”. We hopped around singing “I like to hop”. We placed the animal cards in the specific piles s – salmon; p – penguin; a – anteater etc.
Downstairs we also played a game with initial sounds which was different from the one our friends played upstairs. We all chose an item of food from our basket and Shelley sang: “What do you have?” and we sang about what we were holding e.g. “I have a banana” and then we danced around and all sang the sound “B, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b banana”. We laughed and danced and had so much fun naming the foods and singing their initial sounds. Santiago had broccoli; Lily had a banana; Tokutaro had pizza; Vincent had a carrot and Clodia had ice cream. We can play this 
game with many things which can also help us understand the concepts, to classify and categorize. Our teachers sometimes call us by the initial sound of our name e.g. Mr. V for Vincent; Mr. T for Tokutaro; Miss L. for Lily etc. We have even started to call our friends by their names this way. This is a really fun way to be introduced to the beginnings of phonemic awareness.
We decorated hearts in preparation for Vincent’s birthday which is at the beginning of February. We drew on the hearts using coloured markers, coloured pencils and crayons. Our teachers wrote a message for us at the back to say Happy Birthday to Vincent. They too made hearts for Vincent and wrote their own messages to him. At the other activity tables we played with junk art materials which we are now taking onto the mat and using in our social and 
dramatic play. We also coloured some more of the junk art things that we made yesterday. We played with the magnetic shapes and the board and made different designs with them.
Santiago used the Shoji today and painted the two kanji letters for New Year in Japanese. He will also have a wall hanging to take home just like all of the children in our class. In fact, our class is getting bigger next week as Olivia will be back and Liam starts attending Ohana. Liam is Miya’s little brother.
Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine.