Welcome to the Philippines

Another week has begun and each day we are becoming more and more interested and able to sit for longer periods of time, in the younger class. We are also enjoying sitting on the round cushions for many of our routines and prefer this to sitting on the floor, during some routines. We started off our day, working on our canvasses and putting final touches to them. Our teachers will finish them off with a special liquid called “Shellac” as this has a strong smell and it is hard to get off your fingers. In France, this is the same thing that they use to polish furniture, especially during the time of Louis XIV. It gives the paintings a great colour and finish.

Many of us did marbling this morning; some of us used many colours and some of us used a few colours; we did some painting with rollers and brushes over tape and then we pulled the tap off to see the patterns underneath; we sprinkled paint on the canvasses too and they look fabulous……we think! It will soon be our teachers turn to make their painting and we wonder what they will do on it.

  We had fun continuing to work on our Hina Matsuri pictures and took time and care while working on them. We paid attention to the detail of their facial features and looked to things that could be eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth etc. We are looking forward to going to see the Hina Matsuri display downstairs in the office so we can see what “Ohinasama” and “Odairisama” look like in miniature. Our teachers will take us downstairs to see the display during the week as well.

We drew with dry erase markers on white boards and enjoy being able to wipe them clean and start all over again, instantly. We are learning how to wait for our turn each day, but sometimes, we need things to happen immediately, which is not always possible in life. We had two circle times today; the first one was sitting together next to the library on our circular cushions, chatting about numbers, counting our fingers and reading a story called “Show me”. In this story, we are asked to point to our nose, our tummy, our cheek and arms. We could rub noses with our friends and teachers; we tweaked our own cheeks and we used our arms to hug one another. We did some actions too and sang “Good Morning” to everyone in English, Japanese, French, Afrikaans, Korean, Chinese, Tagalog and more. After snack time, we held hands in a circle and did some more actions. This time, our teachers asked us to focus our thoughts on our hands, and the different things that you can do with your hands.

  Our second circle focused on shapes. We knew a circle, square, triangle, heart and star. We were able to look around the room to see if we could see some of these very same shapes. We sang “I’m a cirlce” and then Hisami sang her song “A circle, a circle, weeny, mini, mini, mini, mini circle”. We will include learning about shapes in our class each day.

Upstairs, we travelled 4 ½ hours to the Philippines (on our pretend airplane). Baby, Allie’s mom, was our guide in the Philippines and she introduced us to some words in “Tagalog” e. g. Kamostala – how are you; Salamat – thank you; Baahlam – goodbye; Mahal Kita – I love you. We made the flag of the Philippines using blue which is the colour symbol for peace, red which is the colour symbol for love of the country and white which is the colour symbol for equality. There are three stars which represent the three regions that make up the Philippines and the sun which has eight rays, symbolising the first eight provinces that fought against the Spanish a long time ago. The blue side must be on top however if the Philippines is fighting a war, then the red side is on top. Ava counted from one to ten in “Tagalog” all by herself. We all made a flag by cutting out circles, stars, stripes etc. We looked at a special fruit that comes from the Philippines which is called papaya and then we looked at ketchup which is not made from tomatoes but it is made from bananas. We tasted dried mango and “polvoron” which are like cookies.

  We made fried bananas with Baby by using bananas from the Philippines and spring roll wrappers. We added some brown sugar to them and then cooked them. They were so delicious and the outside of the spring roll wrapper was so crispy. We played a game using a “sipa”. The “sipa” was made from material attached to a circular piece of metal. It looked spiky but it was soft when you touched it. When you play this game, you use your feet or your elbows and you have to keep the “sipa” off the ground, and count how many times you can keep it in the air. “Sipa” is called a street game. The second game you play with a Chinese garter and it is made from rubber bands. You stretch the rubber bands and jump over them backwards. These games sound like fun.

We spent some time working on our canvassed using perforated metal sheeting to make “Pop Art”. We made dots on the metal sheeting by stippling acrylic paint through the holes with a brush. Momo and Tokutaro glued their tracing paper faces onto their canvasses too. When we went to the park, we tried playing with the “sipa” and it was really difficult, even for our teachers.

We want to say a huge thank you to Baby and Mariette for coming to teach us so many things about the Philippines today. We had a great time.

Salamat Po! Much love always.

Shelley, Darren, Hisami, Ayaka, Liezel, Nanako, Goh, Christine, Maryna, Sharee