Hi, friends! I hope you are staying safe from the recent heatwave that has caught us all off-guard. It was a struggle for the students to see the beautiful sunshine outside, but being greeted with the heat upon coming outside. We have survived though, and it has made us well prepared for the upcoming Summer!

The students have started inquiring into the second Line of Inquiry of the current Unit today, titled “Our countries and our Cities”. We started covering the basics of world geography by using the students’ atlases to search for the seven continents and revise the locations of various countries. The students seemed to enjoy the various quizzes we did on the topic and next week, we will try to discover more things about various cultures. 🌍

The main event this week was definitely Tuesday’s walking tour around Shiga, where the students were led by the lovely local guide Mr. Ichikawa. A big history enthusiast, his stories about the importance of Shiga during the Edo period were enchanting. Did you know that Shiga was an important rest stop on the long pedestrian road between Nagano’s Zenkouji and Matsumoto Castle? The students seemed most excited about Mr. Ichikawa’s many relics from the past, including the waraji shoes used in that time, which were made of straw, a pocket lantern, which could hold a candle, and a small sword, which everyone carried as a knife. It was lovely to get to know our local area! 🏯

The students proceeded to use the information shared with them to compose two-paragraph essays. We have been writing a lot recently, but since we didn’t have much time recently to write our diaries, they provide a good chance for the students to reflect and think critically, as well as practice their grammar skill, their spelling and handwriting. Some students have been writing diaries at home and bringing in to school for me to check. If you and the student have time to do this little homework at home, this could be very beneficial for their language skills.

Finally, I’d like to say thank you to parents who participated in the class’ field trip and joined a coffee meeting. One of the main focuses of ISN is definitely communication within the school community, so it is always nice to hear parents’ ideas and have you involved in class activities. Let’s hope we have more opportunities to communicate in the future! Have a lovely weekend! 🌺