Greetings,

Welcome to our last blog for the month of July.

This week, Shooting Star class has found the pleasure of reading the -eg family CVC words like leg, beg, peg, and keg. To make our Phonics lesson fun and engaging, we carried out a stop dance activity. Everyone danced around the tables as the music played and when the music stopped, students picked out a CVC word, read it, and matched it with the picture on the white board. All the same CVC words grouped themselves together and read them aloud in chorus. Way to go Shooting Star!

今週は-egのワードファミリーを学んだ子どもたち。アクティビティーでは、ダンスをしながら、曲が止まったら近くのワードを手に取り言葉を読み、楽しくCVCを学んでいます🎵

For our UOI, as a continuation to our first line of inquiry which is, The characteristics of insects and their growth, we looked into the life cycle of cicada. We collected a cicada when we went to Shiojiri Forest Center and we used it during our class discussion. Subsequently, the teacher prepared photos of cicada life cycle with pictures of stages and asked students to work in groups putting them in order to check their prior knowledge. Then, the teacher read a Japanese picture book about the life cycle of cicada. After reading, we had a class discussion again and we reflected altogether and checked our answers. At the end of the lesson, we have learned that the life cycle of cicada starts from egg, nymph, molt, and finally adult.

先週の森林散策でセミを採ってきた子ども達。大人になったセミはこんな形だけど、セミがあかちゃんの時はどんな形だったと思う？とみんなで話しながら、セミのライフサイクルについて探求しました。ちょうどいい絵本（日本語でしたが）があったので、それを読みながら、セミの一生について学びました。セミは卵から幼虫になったら4～5年もの間、土の中にいるそうです。「みんなと同じくらいの歳までずっと土のなかだってよ～」と驚きながら探究しました✨✨

We made a symmetrical butterfly craft for our decoration for the Sports Festival. Students were given a butterfly template and decorated one side with different colors of glitter glue. Then, they folded and gently rubbed one side of the paper to spread the glitter glue. Finally, they carefully opened it to reveal a beautiful butterfly.

森林散策で蝶々も見つけたので、バタフライのクラフトもしました🦋💖合わせ絵という技法を使い、紙の片面だけ絵具をのせ、紙を半分に折ってすり合わせ、蝶々の模様を作りました❕紙を開くと、みんなWowと口々に叫び、色の広がりを楽しんでいました😊

Our favorite way of beating the heat is to play in the water. We integrated our UOI into our water play by finding insects in the water. Learning through play is our best way to acquire skills we need.

暑い！そんな日はやっぱり水遊び！今週もみんな大好きなプール遊びを楽しんでいます🎵

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone.