The month of February went by quickly. After two weeks of online learning, how happy we were to be back in the classroom “person to person”. This month we had the Japanese celebration of Setsubun (changing of seasons), the Chinese New Year, and our favorite Valentine’s Day.
And… our new building right next door is showing progress day by day! The workers are very busy. We love watching the digger skillfully move around Sister Carmel’s blooming sakura tree.
We can even see a different digger from our classroom, where our future playground will return. And we also had to move past at the end of the school day.
For a few days, we had a peek of the new building until the outer drapes covered it again. We know that in April it will be partly ready!
According to the Japanese lunar calendar, Setubun literally means “seasonal division”, and is a festival held on the day before the beginning of spring. In the olden days, rituals are held on this day to drive away evil spirits by throwing roasted beans and welcoming good fortune.
Valentine’s Day: It was fun folding a square origami paper into lots of hearts for the people we love. The older children also helped make them for the younger children.
Happy Valentine’s Day! We made a bag and put some treats in it to take home. We love you!
Library: On Thursdays we take a trip to the library in the main building.
The librarian shows us how to flip the pages carefully
We get to choose our own library books every week. Did you pick a fiction or non-fiction book?
It was such a nice sunny day, so we decided to make a quick stop on the roof of the main building. What a nice view of this side of Yokohama! We carefully walked on the line.
We also played “Duck, duck, goose!”
We even saw an airplane. “There it is!”
In the classroom, everyone is focused on the work they chose, working on their own or with a partner.
Show and Tell: “This is a robot that my dad and I programmed together.”
“This is how I control the robot. See, it can balance itself!”
“My Show and Tell is carefully trying to pile up the ice cream. Would you like a double, triple…or more?”
Cylinder Blocks
When the long hand is at 12, then we know what time it is by looking at the short hand.
One day we had a pizza lunch together. We all love pizza! Yummm.
“More pizza, please!”
After eating, we passed the balloons!
And also did a little dance together!
In the month of February, we studied about teeth. Some children had a wiggly tooth. We learned the importance of brushing our teeth. We need to drink milk to make our teeth strong; it’s a good source of calcium. These are grown-up teeth to practice brushing properly.
Children have 20 primary teeth. When we lose a tooth, a new permanent tooth is there to replace it.
We learned the names of our 20 teeth. Central incisors, lateral incisors, canines, first molars, and second molars. The sharp teeth are called canines, to tear our food.
During the month of February, four children lost their tooth! Two children lost their lower central incisor, one lost her lateral incisor, and one lost her upper central tooth. Can you identify which one?
Losing teeth means we are growing. We need to take good care of our teeth, as we only get two sets of teeth in our lifetime.
And… we even discovered that our cafeteria lunch drink had…central incisors!
We compiled and colored the pages of “My Teeth Book”.
These flags have two colors, red and white. These have red, white and blue…Which one is the flag of your country?
Some worked on making a globe and a map of Australia by pinning the outlines of the territories and states, and gluing the pieces together.
In our class, we have children with passports from over a dozen different countries. Out of the 7 continents, we have children from all continents except… Antarctica. Do you know who lives in cold Antarctica? That’s right, the penguins!