Spring Blossoms

The first day I arrived in Matsumoto, there was fresh snow on the ground from a light dusting the night before. Coming from Thailand, where it was the hottest month of the year, I was shocked at how cold it was here. For the first week of school I was wearing leggings under my jeans and layering my shirts underneath a borrowed coat. It hadn't occurred to me how much colder Japan would be than Thailand, or sunny San Diego, California, where I am originally from. However, the weather has continued to improve, and in honor of the most beautiful week of blue skies since I have arrived in Japan, Miss. Yuki and I decided to focus on the theme of Spring.

Every morning we sing a song about the weather, and at the end it asks the students, "what's the weather like today?" Every day they were able to answer with excitement, "today is sunny!"

On Monday we went to the park and at the end of our free play time we had the children collect leaves and put them in a bag I was holding. We gave instructions on what size leaves they could collect, and although we asked they only pick one, some of the kids found a few and couldn't make up their minds, so I let them bring them all.

Back at the classroom, we did an art project where the students placed the leaves under a piece of paper, and using a crayon they rubbed the color over them. When done correctly this creates a nice print on the top side of the paper. While it was a little difficult for some of the students, its primary focus was to improve their motor-skills as well as work on following directions.

They also practiced cleaning up after themselves, which is something we are working on everyday.

The second art project we did this week was a picture of a cherry blossom tree. Each student was given an unique tree trunk that they were able to color anyway they wanted to. When they finished coloring in the trunk with pastels, they finger painted the cherry blossoms onto the bare branches. Aurora loves any activity that involves paint and getting their hands wet, and although I instructed that they use only one finger to paint with, somehow we all still ended up with completely pink hands. Although we got messy, they had a lot of fun, and the trees turned out beautiful.