Milky Way class is currently working on the transdisciplinary theme of how the world works, with the central idea that living things have specific requirements to grow and be healthy. The class is continuing daily to review and reinforce the unit’s vocabulary list of over fifty animals and life-related words and concurrently associate names of animals with their picture and define various descriptive terms. They are becoming more adept at assigning an animal to a taxonomic class based on what they have learned and they have come to understand though experimentation that plants require water, soil and light to flourish. Further, they have observed that seeds in water alone will germinate but die, that seeds without light will germinate but will gradually become white and die and that seeds without water will not germinate.
Milky Way　テーマ「世界の仕組み」　セントラルアイディア「生物が成長し健康でいるためには必要不可欠なものがある」
MWでは現在、生物の名前やそれに関する50以上の単語を学んでいて、生物の写真が種類別に並んで壁に貼ってあるので、いつでも目を向ければ生物の名前と写真が一致することができます。植物の成長には水、土そして光が必要だということなど、子ども達は実践的な学びを取り入れながら理解してきています。水だけでは種は育つがいずれ死んでしまうこと、光がないところでは育った種は最終的に白くなって死んでしまうこと、そして水なしでは種は育つこともできないということを発見しました。
In language, the class has continued with prepositions; speaking and writing grammatically correct sentences with diagrammatic representations that describe the position of one object in relation to another. Moreover, the students analyse the sentences containing the prepositions to find multiple phonograms in continually novel words so that they can better learn to ‘sound-out’ unfamiliar words phonetically. The students have also been refreshing their knowledge of the different ways that any single letter of the alphabet can be read/ pronounced by reading and speaking simple phrases comprising each phonetic, for example, the five pronunciations of the letter ‘A’ are enunciated with the phrase “fat baby in the bath all washed.”
言語の授業では、前置詞を学んでいます。会話の中ではもちろんのこと、文法的に正しく書くことにも重点を置いています。前置詞を含むライティングの時には、フォニックスにも焦点を当てながら行うことで、難しい単語でも自力で発音することを目指しています。また、アルファベット一つひとつの発音の仕方にしても、いくつもの発音方法があるということを新しく学んでいます。”a”という文字ひとつでも“fat baby in the bath all washed.”という文章から見られるようにいくつもの発音の仕方があります。
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Further regarding language, with dedicated assistance from Ms Miyu, Milky Way students have begun a daily one-on-one, student- teacher program aimed to improve the reading and comprehension capacity of the individual.
みゆ先生のサポートもあり、MWの子どもたちにはリーディングにも力を入れています。子どもたちのリーディング能力向上と個々での理解力を広げるために先生と子ども1対1の時間があります。
In mathematics, Milky Way is continuing to investigate length by measurement. The concept of centimetres is well understood and using a ruler they practice both measuring stipulated items, as well as ruling a line of designated length in centimetres. Most students round the answer to the nearest centimetre but some students actively queried and hence, were shown and are now encouraged, to answer to tenths of a centimetre with a decimal place. After measurements have been made, the class speak and write sentences including comparatives (taller, longer, shorter) and superlatives (longest, tallest, shortest).
算数の授業では、長さを測ることをしています。センチメートルという概念はMWの子どもたち皆が理解できていて、教室にある物の長さをものさしで測ったり、センチメートルを使って真っすぐに線を引くことができるようになりました。測定が終わったら、比較(taller, longer, shorter)や最上級 (longest, tallest, shortest)の単語を使った文章で測ったものを比較して文章にします。
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In craft time, implementing their ruling and measuring skills, they have commendably made milk-carton-rabbit plant pots to prescribed dimensions.
工作の時間では、測定を用いて牛乳パックのウサギを作りました。
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During daily free-play time, the students are enjoying creative drawing and paper crafts and many students are choosing to go with the current theme of living things and drawing myriads of animals. The students are coincidentally showing impressive imagination and are able to detail stories about exactly what is happening in their illustrations.
日々のフリープレーの時間は、多くの子どもたちが現在のテーマでもある生き物の絵を描いたり、紙を使って工作したりしています。子ども達は想像力に満ちた素晴らしい作品を作ってはそのものについて楽しそうに説明してくれます。
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Each morning, Milky Way is practicing for their ribbon-twirling performance at the sports festival. Also, they are rehearsing Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
毎朝、MWはスポーツフェスティバルの練習とオープニングで歌うZip-A-Dee-Doo-Dahを歌っています。
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Finally, Milky Way students are enjoying the outside pool and have enjoyed looking for insects, tadpoles and frogs.
外のプール、また虫やオタマジャクシを取るのにも夢中になって楽しんでいます。
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