Lets do the "numba rhumba"
Koh chan and Luka chan came to school today and it was great to see them back, out of diapers and ready for being in Petals class. We missed Miyu chan who was sick and we hope that she will be well enough to come to school tomorrow.
When we arrived at school there was a table of drawing with sparkly pens, markers and coloured pencils. Many of us are drawing with plenty of discernible form and 
shapes are clear to see. Our teachers are encouraging us to think about what we would like to draw and then when we have completed our drawings, they ask us what we have made. They then write something about our drawings so that people can read the story that we told about our work. We have taken our drawings home today but tomorrow’s 
drawings we will keep for our portfolios.
At the second activity which was set up for us during free play, we had a large wooden tray filled with green, sparkly sand. We loved the texture of it and could use wooden utensils to move the sand around. Most of us preferred to use our hands; however, when we were finished playing 
with it, our hands became greeny blue, from the food colouring that was used to colour it. During the day, the colour on our hands faded and by the time we went home, our hands were almost clean.
Luka and Koh completed their placemats so that they could use them at snack and lunch time. When we set up the tables for meal times at school, it is now our responsibility to find our placemats and put everything that we need on 
them. Our teachers watch in awe as they see how much we have grown up and what we can do without their assistance. In fact, today Hisami said to Shelley: “The children don’t need me anymore” which we think is not really true. We need our teachers however as we get older, we need them in a different way!
In the back section of our room, we had two tables to work on. One table had the Montessori colour shaded pegs and boards which we used yesterday and the other game was classifying and categorizing. We had a few different boards with pictures on them. In the centre of the table, there were 3D objects that matched the pictures on each board. The different groups that were represented on the cards were Foods we eat, Things that go, What lives on a farm, What lives in the sea? We 
matched the objects where they belonged and when we have mastered and understood the categories, we will turn the cards over and play another game using the same objects.
We all had a turn to play the guitar that we have in our classroom. Hisami played a few songs for us to sing on the guitar. She played “Wheels on the bus” and “Twinkle, twinkle little star”. Look at us “rock stars” strumming!
After snack time, we went to the activity tables again and this time, we had some collage materials to use and create a picture with. We had different coloured origami squares, coloured tape, glue, pairs of scissors and a piece of white paper for each of us. We could make whatever we wanted on the white piece of paper. We used our fingers to put the potato starch glue onto the back of our shapes, and then pasted them onto the white paper. We were extremely busy here and spent a long time cutting, gluing, arranging and talking about what we were making. Our pictures are drying at the moment before they are placed on the wall or possibly straight into our workbooks. Since we were not able to go outside, because of the weather, we played many different games; and two of them were number games. The one we played yesterday using magnets on the white board, was fun and this time we sang the “Numba rhuma” before we played it. We love doing actions to the “cha cha cha cha” part of the song. We either clap our hands, stamp our feet, blow air, click our tongues etc. This number game was with ice creams on a stick. In Australia you call the paddle pops and in America you call them popsicles. We had to count the dots on them and place a coloured cover with a matching numberical symbol on them. We were excited to “eat” them when the game was over!
Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel