Our WARMEST greetings to all! Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! HAPPY NEW YEAR! Canyon was ready to start the new year. There were no tears at all after the winter break, just smiles, hugs and greetings! We talked about Oshogatsu. Did you go to the shrine? Did you have ozouni soup? Someone shared that she did mochi-tsuki with her daddy. Who received O-toshidama? Did you say thank-you? YES!!

We walked to the shrine behind ISN for our very own Hatsumoude. Before that in class, we read a book about Japanese Festivals and we practised how to bow, clap and make wishes. When we arrived at the shrine, we prayed that in the coming year everyone will grow up happy, healthy, big and strong! At the shrine , we saw offerings of mochi and mikan.

OSHOGATSU SONG

Canyon learned a traditional Oshogatsu song. We sang, danced and performed. There were decorations in class from Japan and Singapore – 2026 is the Year of the Horse. There are 12 zodiac animals. Canyon practised counting the animals and we realised that the cat is not there. Why? In the Chinese culture, there is a story about the animals called The Zodiac Race. To find out why the cat did not win the race, watch the video story below.

MUSIC CLASS

Canyon learned about beats in music and sang a new Japanese song. They placed games with hula hoops too.

ALPHABET PRACTICE

We worked on the rest of the letters G, H, I. We did our rainbow writing for letter formation, learned the letter sounds and expanded our vocabulary. Canyon has been using this child-friendly website Starfall for our phonics introduction. This is a free educational website and it is also available as an app for your mobile phones, Ipad or tablets. https://www.starfall.com/h/abcs/

It was play time as usual both indoor and outdoor. We discovered that snow melts into water when the day gets warmer, and the water that we left outside overnight becomes ice! Till next week, have a wonderful long weekend. For those turning 20 years old, Happy Adulting!