Parents' Day

It was fun to see you at Parents' Day! The Grade 5/6 'Uniters' were thrilled to share their stop motion animation video, Save the Water, with our school community. Please enjoy watching it, too!

I was happy that the Parents' Day visit happened during Independent Inquiry. It was a fantastic chance for parents to see the students pursuing their own interests and collaborating on each others' projects.

Sule enjoyed participating in Bushra's 'make up' project while listening to music. Bushra also recruited her mother to illustrate her sense of beauty and fashion!

Suheda and her mother brainstormed ideas for the PYP Exhibition. Even though their heads were 'empty', they worked together to make many ideas!

Miray used some of her time to master mathematics facts. It's great to see the students improving their time management and taking responsibility for balance in their learning.

I can't believe that next week is the end of the term! We will decide and schedule our Exhibition 'kick off' trip and begin gathering ideas so that the students can start inquiring during Spring Break.

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Japanese map

G5/6 students have been learning Kanji used for place name.

It's from G6 textbook "Kanji wo tadashiku tsukaeruyouni".

They enjoyed learning some Japanese map symbols.

Students also made lots of poems in Japanese class.

They really like to use some onomatopoeia!

Some students got Marathon MVP award from our neighboring school Jinsho.

Congratulations!

Circles & Drama

Miray and Sule had a special challenge this week to divide three circles into four equal parts. I was excited to see their creative strategies. We applied just about twenty minutes per day to the task and both were finished on Friday.

These days, we have had a strong attraction to drama. The students love playing drama games, but I thought it was the right time for them to consider their audience and create some improvised drama that is more serious and emotional.

After organizing our ideas on paper, we designed new drama games to create more meaningful improv skits.

Of course, we also take time to play drama games 'just for fun'.

The students wanted me to share the picture below as an example of them being courageous while playing jenga.

I'm glad they are noticing when they express our IB attitudes and I hope they will transfer that awareness to other areas of learning and living. We are all tired after working hard for our IB PYP verification visit and ready for a restful weekend.

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Science & Numeracy Week

This was a busy and productive week. We started by rearranging the furniture in the classroom. We were all happy with the new arrangement.

Inspired by an activity at Edcamp Tokyo, the students wanted to to try a challenge. They tied ribbon to their wrists so that two people would be stuck together. It is possible to escape, but it takes creativity and cooperation.

Bushra and Suheda even tried staying tied together until they solved the puzzle, but it was a bit too inconvenient.

The Science & Numeracy Week activities were a hit as usual. I was working in the 'volcano balloon' room and captured pictures of Miray and Safiye working together on a fun chemistry experiment.

On Thursday, our class schedule cooperated with the weather, and we took our field trip to Yoyogi Park to conduct the students' Fashion Perception Survey. If you have a few minutes, please complete the survey!

It was inspiring to see all of the students acting with great confidence and enthusiasm! We published the survey online and were excited to see that Julia, from last year's grade 6 class, had responded!

In the next weeks, we will be completing all of our inquiry tasks so that we can 'kick off' the Exhibition. Please visit our Exhibition website for details!

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Kanji day

This week, we reviewed some Kanji we have learned from the last few years.

We made so many small pieces of Kanji and enjoyed making idioms.

It was a great chance to review some easy kanji because students need to learn new kanji every week and couldn't really review the old kanji recently.

They also read the story "Chojugiga o yomu" and "Kono e watashi ha koumiru" from Kokugo textbook.

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Finished ISA!

I was very proud of the Grade 5/6 'Uniters' efforts on the International Schools Assessment. For several hours on Monday and Wednesday, they applied great concentration and thinking to the test and I hope that their results reflect their commitment.

They have also been very committed leaders! During Japanese Culture Day, they hosted the school assembly and taught new Japanese games to the younger students.

I was impressed by their confidence and tolerance while working with younger students!

Miray volunteered to help with a special project for Edcamp Tokyo, a conference of teachers being hosted at JIES.

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Keeping busy!

This was a week of milestones. In addition to having our 100th day of the school year, Grade 3 hosted a speech contest. Although the contestants prepared mostly by themselves, we did take some time in the Performing Arts Studio to practice presence, poise, and engagement in public speaking.

I recorded a video of the activity which you may view on our class blog on Kidblog. The students were noticeably nervous for the contest, but persevered to deliver excellent speeches. We are very proud of Suheda and Miray for their special recognition. 

Please click each child's name, Miray, Sule, Suheda, and Bushra, to see a video of their speech! Please note that the videos are 'unlisted', which means that they can only be seen by clicking on the links.

Another milestone was the first Friday on which the students had five different tests: Spelling, Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Japanese! It was a perfect warm up for the ISA next week.

We introduced a new piece of technology, although it is probably not what you'd expect. The class is very excited to use a Post-It Easel for making their discussions and collaboration visible.

This will be a valuable tool when preparing their Exhibition.

Thank you for your participation in planning our Exhibition Meeting for students, parents, and teachers. We're waiting to hear from a few more parents before scheduling the meeting.

If it is too difficult for everyone to attend, I will try to find time to record my presentation and conduct a question and answer session online.

Finally, here is a reminder about being prepared for the ISA which was sent in an email last week:

Please help to ensure that students have slept well, eaten a healthy breakfast, and arrive to school on time.

Grade 5/6 students may also bring a healthy 'brain food' snack to eat during the tests to help with concentration. These snacks should be low in processed sugar and oil, and high in natural sugars and protein.

Salt free nuts, whole grains, and fresh fruit are particularly recommended. As usual, chocolate and other sweets will not be allowed during the tests.

Thanks!

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