January 28th (Tues)

Another fun day of preschool has gone by! The students all enjoyed Circle Time today. They were especially interested in counting the days of school, because I had switched the color of the whiteboard marker from black to blue. They were very excited and said, “Blue! Blue!” while pointing at the whiteboard. They were very curious as to why the color changed, and I explained to them that the black marker ran out of ink so now we have a new blue marker. We have such observant students! As usual, the colors in the storybook were very popular and they all had fun pointing out their favorite colors.

 

 

Recently, the students have been very interested in trying different activities. K. tried a toothpick activity where you put toothpicks through tiny holes into a container. I explained to him how to use it responsibly and make sure that the toothpicks don’t fall onto the ground. The students are getting better and better at understanding and following instructions, and K. had no trouble doing the activity correctly. We are excited to try more and more activities together!

 

 

Last Saturday was Chinese New Year, so we made a festive craft today: firecrackers! We punched holes in our paper strips and put them on our yarn with straws inbetween. This craft was different from our usual paper and glue, so the students had to concentrate a lot on threading the yarn through the holes. Big S. really enjoyed threading the yarn through the straws and put a lot onto her firecracker. Little S. has practiced with the hole puncher a lot, so this was a good craft for her! This was also a good chance for the students to practice taking turns as we were sharing two hole punchers. H. was very good at specifying which hole puncher he wanted, using the color of the hole puncher to ask for it. Each student made a unique firecracker. For example, O. made one with lots of straws at the bottom and K. made one with a red yellow red yellow pattern. Everyone worked very hard!

 

 

We were all excited for lunch so everyone worked together to get the lunch tables ready. Today Big S. and O decided to wipe the tables, while H., K., and Little S. got chairs. They’ve gotten very good at the routine and remember which table to put the cushions for the teachers at. We’ve been practicing squeezing all the water out of the rags before wiping the tables, and the students are getter stronger and stronger!

 

 

Unfortunately we had bad weather again, so we were unable to go the the park. However, the students still had plenty of fun playing together inside. Miss Akiko taught Little S. how to do the fishing puzzle and Big S. and H. were very interested in doing it together. After that, the four older students had a lot of fun running around together and playing trains. They got lots of good practice negotiating with each other. When it was time to go home, they all gathered to say goodbye to each other.

 

The students are all growing up so quickly! Lets keep working hard for the rest of January and into February!