Hi, everyone! How were your past two weeks? Did you have a nice start of the New year? 🎉

Many exciting things have happened in Grades 3 and 4. We started off with a big cleaning and mochi-making event to mark the start of term. Thank you to all the parents who came and helped! All the students worked very hard as well. The classroom and the hallways haven’t looked this clean since the start of the school year! We concluded the event with a fun mochi-making party. The students were able to pound the mochi rice and then try out three different flavors of mochi, served by the parents! It was so yummy! 

The students have started inquiring into the fourth Unit of Inquiry of the year, following the Transdisciplinary Theme of “Where we are in place of time” and the Topic of “Traditions”. We will learn about the importance of learning about one’s culture and preserving one’s traditions. 

The students started their inquiry by researching about various traditions from around the world and preparing posters and presentations on them, including meat buns from China, the Day of the Dead from Mexico, matryoshka dolls from Russia and so on.🪆

In P.E., the students practiced something very exciting: balancing on a slackline. It was a bit complicated and frightening at first, but as fearless as they are, the students got the hang of it pretty quickly and enjoyed it very much.

Finally, on Friday, the long-awaited bus trip came. We had an exciting experience of riding the local train to Narai, a beautifully preserved old town on the former Nakasendo trail. We took a walk around town and inside some of the buildings, learning about its history, the type of houses built in the town and how people living in the town now are preserving those traditions. 💡

In the afternoon, we went ice skating at the Yamabiko Skating Park in Okaya. We slid and twirled until our legs gave out. As fearless as they are, the students were real risk-takers! Everyone was very tired by the end and we all fell asleep on the bus back to the campus.⛸️

Have a fun weekend!🌨️