Hello everyone!
This week’s Blog will mainly focus on last week’s Grade 2 Bus trip😊✅

Last week, we went to Chausuyama Zoo in Nagano!
The weather forecast until the day before was… ☔️ “rain rain rain…”, but to our surprise, it didn’t rain on the day of the trip and the temperature was very comfortable all day long. 🙏🏻

Grade 2 had a great time on the bus, even on the very long road trip! Students chatted with each other, played finger games (janken, counting game, etc.). We stopped at an service station to take a bathroom break. When coming back from the toilets we found many students marveling at a… grass-mower! Haha! They were intrigued by how it worked, as it was an autonomous (AI driven) mower.

After arriving at the zoo, we played animal bingo as an activity! The students played animal bingo by finding the animals on their worksheets. They had to find something spotted, something that eats meat, something with scales, etc.
Some of the children had been to Chausuyama Zoo before, and some were there for the first time. It was really great to see the kids that had been there before take lead and tell other students the names of animals they remembered. They even went as far as telling them little facts they knew from prior visits. Great job team!!

Cheeky monkeys checking out the actual monkeys! 😉

We were really lucky as on the day, we even got to see a newborn baby giraffe on one of it’s first days outside! It was so cute!
Even though it was a baby, it was even bigger than our homeroom teacher! 😳

Our office staff members had called ahead and had arranged for us to have lunch in a conference room inside the monorail station building.
We ate our lunch in a very comfortable and air-conditioned place, regardless of the weather 🍙.
Look at their happy faces🤭🤝In fact, most of the children had been eager to eat their lunches all morning, and as soon as they arrived at the zoo, many of them shouted “I’m hungry! I’m hungry! I want to eat my bento! My mommy/daddy put this and this in my bento!”. It was so lovely to see how much they were looking forward to it!
Thank you to all the families who helped prepare the lunch boxes and bus trip 😊.

Yum time!!

After our lunch we enjoyed some time in the Dinosaur park. Students could leave their backpacks behind and were free to run around, go down the slides, and explore the area for a bit. When it was time to go home, most students were pretty tired and warm, luckily our bus driver was waiting for us with a nice cool bus! Thank you!

There were no other kids playing in the park, so we could all enjoy the slides as much as possible!

During the trip home, some students were not done with the day yet and continued chatting together, how their day had been, things they saw outside the window and other things that keep them busy (turns out… that is a lot 😉 Haha!). Others were really tired and fell asleep until we arrived back to school (where they quickly laid their head to rest on their backpacks on top of their desks…).

All in all, it was a really successful day and we hope to do something similar again in the future.

For now though… it is almost time for the Summer Program! 😀

皆さん、こんにちは！
今週のBlogは、先週のGrade2 Bus tripをメインにご覧いただきます😊✅

先週は、長野市篠ノ井にある茶臼山動物園へ行ってきました！！
前日までの天気予報は…ずーっと☔️マークでしたが、当日はなんと雨が降らず、しかも一日中とても過ごしやすい気温でした🙏🏻

Grade2にとっては、とても長い道のりもバスの中でもとても楽しい時間を過ごしましたよ〜！

動物園についてからは、アクティビティとして動物ビンゴを行いました！ワークシートに書いてある動物を見つけたら✅します。
茶臼山動物園に来たことがある児童も、初めての児童もいました。

この日は、最近産まれたばかりのキリンの赤ちゃんを見ることも出来ました！！🦒
可愛いですねぇ〜！赤ちゃんだけど、とても大きいです！！😳

お昼ご飯は、モノレール駅舎の中にある会議室で食べました。
天候に左右されず、しかも冷房が効いたとても過ごしやすい中でお弁当を食べました🍙
見てください、皆の嬉しそうな顔🤭🤝実は、朝からずっとお弁当を食べたがっていた児童がほとんどで、動物園に到着した途端”I’m hungry!!”の声がたくさん聞こえて来ました🤭
それだけ楽しみだったのですね！
お家の方、お弁当やBus tripのご準備にご協力いただきありがとうございました😊