Early Years : Kindergarten Blog, Feb. 5: Oni Masks and Messy Hands

The unicorn and butterfly rooms were filled with many Onis this week to celebrate the Setsubun festival!

In the blue team, they threw beans to the Oni masks which were hidden in the classroom — they made the bad luck Onis run away! Now, only the good luck lady Fuku is staying in the room.

Here’s a photo of the children’s faces on the whiteboard. They play with them as a puzzle or as a counting game — they count how many children in blue team have black, blue, green or brown eyes.

In the beginning of the week, the students from the yellow team got their hands dirty. They discovered that by mixing flour, water, salt, a little bit of oil, and food coloring, they can create a gooey material that turns into playdough. We used our playdough to create characters using the physical characteristics that we learned in class — we made hair, eyes, ears, noses, and mouths using different colors. We used them for learning the letters, too!

We also created a different self-portrait. This time, we completed the missing part of our picture to make our face symmetrical. Some of the children wanted to make their features different, while the others wanted to make it as close to their own features as possible. To label the portraits that we've made, we've also made an artwork of our name -- and we practiced our scissor skills, too!

To get to know ourselves deeper, we’ve also started exploring the things that we like, such as the food we eat. We packed our own lunchbox with food that we enjoy eating, and we discovered that some of our friends like the same food we do! What a snack attack!