A week before the Christmas break Coach Pekin had a bicycle accident.  She is currently recuperating in Australia. We have all had our fingers and toes crossed for a speedy recovery. The Whale Sharks have been asking about Coach Pekin and missing her during our PE lessons. They decided as a class they wanted to leave a message for Coach Pekin. During a booking in the computer lab we got to experiement with a program on the IPAD called ‘Puppetpals’ and we each made a message for Coach Pekin. Here it is.. (Coach Pekin I hope you are able to watch this)

The children loved the experience and I know from talking to some parents they enjoyed watching their little Whale Sharks perform on stage. Sadly we only recorded the songs that we sang on stage not the two songs that we sang from the steps. I am sure if you would like to see ‘Down by The Bay’ and the ‘Alimango song’ I can ask other parents for a copy. There was lots of videoing going on.

Take care all and happy holidays. For those who celebrate Christmas have a festive season with family and friends.

The most active area in our room for the past two weeks has been the post office.  Students have been busy sending and receiving messages.  Each child has name labels located in a drawer.  When we want to send a message, we find a friend’s name label and attach it to our letter or envelope.  Then, we find our own name label and put it on our mail so the person we send it to knows who it is from.  If we want to, we can write each other’s names as well.

The post office is valuable for literacy development as children make drawings, write and read names, and write messages to one another.  In addition, the post office supports social relationships and social development as the children write notes back and forth to one another.  They feel good when they receive a note from a friend and they often return the nice gesture with a reply in the mail or a “thank you.”

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On Friday, the children celebrated our wonderful host country, the Philippines, with a variety of cultural activities. We started the morning with an ES assembly, the Preschool stood up in front of the ES and taught everyone the actions of a Filipino song called “The Alimango Song.”  We were then lucky enough to take a jeepney ride!! We set off from school and went around the block. This was the highlight of the day for most of the children.

We participated in games such as; ‘tumbangpresso’ where the children threw their shoes at a tin can to knock it over, ‘a sack race’ and a ‘calamansi relay.’ They learned a traditional filipino dance, ’tinikling’, and made their very own ‘sago at gulaman’ a traditional summer drink made with jello and sugar cane juice. They were also told a Filipino story called, ‘When Color Came to Town.’ For snack we sampled some Filipino foods including cornicks, dried mango, puto, barbeque pork, chicharon and taho.

It was a fun packed day for everyone. A big thank you to our wonderful teaching assistants who organised many of the activities for the day.