Hello, everyone! Thank you for reading us again this week! Monday started our week off with a double-period computing lesson. The island levels the students have created are getting more and more defined, with controllable characters, and scenery that can be interacted with. The next step is for them to connect their islands to their friends’ ones, so they have spent a part of today’s lesson brainstorming the best way to do that. Since today was the final Computing lesson of the term, this will have to wait until after summer break. Nevertheless, the students have accomplished so much with their digital modeling and coding skills in the past three months.

A hot, hot Tuesday followed. This morning we had a wonderful opportunity to invite grades 4, 5, and some of the teachers to our classroom to help us rehearse for Thursday’s Inquiry Fair. The students prepared their booths and presentation, and their schoolmates and teachers offered useful feedback. The students have shown great communication skills in terms of accepting said feedback and started working on improvements and further honing their presentation skills almost immediately. 

On Wednesday, we started our day off with visiting our friends in Grade 4, to take a look at what they have prepared for the Inquiry Fair, and offer feedback in ways they can improve their presentation skills. After a refreshing dip in the pool (sadly, the last one before summer break), an impromptu celebration was held dedicated to today being the 67th day of school. A good chance to relax tired bodies and minds.

Thursday was the big day: the ISN Inquiry Fair. The students started carefully preparing from the early morning , and welcomed the parents and visitors from other classes excitedly. The students were full of good impressions after the event and shared that they felt that they were able to share their research and work well. Thank you to all the parents who joined and supported us!

In total, the class will presented on six topics: 
– helping the environment by planting trees and setting up bird houses, 
– helping the community by exploring ways to assist animal shelters and help learning and focus of others, and
– helping one’s health by learning about macronutrients and a healthy liver
This was all in addition to everything the other classes have planned out.

After the hectic schedule of the Inquiry fair, a calmer day was had on Friday. We started off by listening to a classmate’s book report, which we got the students interested in the fashions, technology, and entertainment of previous decades, so we spend a lesson researching and discussing the history and people of the 1950s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

After the morning break, the students took on management, marketing, cooking, and finance roles to further prepare for our collaboration (“bake sale”) event to take place in September. The team in charge of the cooking tested several recipes for margherita sandwiches and banana shakes, decided on the best ones, and calculated the costs of used materials. Everyone enjoyed the delicious shakes, and the students got compliments from some of the teachers that they shared them with as well. Meanwhile, the marketing team has been working on designs for their serving booth and packaging, as well as social media strategy for the event. Thing seem to be coming along nicely.

Our next-to-last day of the term started with an in-person meeting with Mr. Chris from Story house cafe. The students presented their ideas about our shared project, sharing recipes tested last week, and their marketing strategy. On September 25, the students will be preparing and selling banana shakes and margherita sandwiches. More information about the event will be shared with you after the holidays. The second period was dedicated to the AI Lesson, hosted again by Mr. Hirabayashi and his assistant Ryan. It was another fun lesson of the students inquiring into the workings of AI by figuring out an interesting math problem – How many times a year does and ISN students go up and down the steps? The lessons will resume after the holidays, on September 1.

While grade 7 students joined their Japanese lesson, the grade 6 students discussed different stages of human development, changes in one’s life, and read a related story. It was interesting to hear the students’ varied opinions on the topic. The excitement of the students could be felt throughout the campus on Wednesday, as it was the last day of term. The students shared their plans for the summer excitedly, while also packing up all their things and trying hard to remember not to forget anything.

Grade 6 and 7 started their day off by practicing the dance for the Matsumoto bon bon festival, followed by a lengthy discussion on the best way to use the profits the students plan to receive from their bake sale event. Everyone agreed on their wish to plant a nice tomato, basil, and flower garden in the school front yard.

A big cleaning of the classroom was organized following this. Today, the students will bring home their lunch apron sets, hats, drink bottles, music instruments and change of clothes. Please clean all of it and bring it back on the first day of the new term, Tuesday, August 25. They will also bring home their computers.