富沢小学校 Tomilishブログ

During summer vacation our ALT, Ms. Emily, will transfer to another school. Although 4th grade English classes had already finished some of the students requested that they have one last English lesson and so all 4th grade classes gathered together.

All three classes got together to play the `Chain Game`. Students took turns to ask the next person in their line a question such as `What's your favorite animal?` in turn until the whole line had finished.
"What's your favorite color?"

"What's your favorite sport?"

It wasn`t a race to see how fast the students could finish but instead we wanted to check if the students were listening to the person that they were speaking too. We checked in turn if each person could remember what the next person had said by asking the question `Do you like~?` using the color/animal/sport that they had heard.
"Do you like soccer?" "Yes, I do!"

"Do you like purple?" "Yes, I do!"
If everyone in the line got the question right all of 4th grade cheered.

Next, the representative from each class gave a small speech and gave Ms. Emily letters from their class.
"Thank you!"

Then, everyone sang a song for Ms. Emily.
Ms. Emily and some of the students cried a little!

After that, Ms. Emily talked to everyone.
"I will miss you! Do your best!"

At the end of the class Ms. Emily said goodbye to every student.
"Have a nice day!"

"Thank you! See you!"

Do you best in the future!

In their last class on Let's Try!2 Unit 2 `Let's play cards.` the 4th grade students invited their friends to play together in a `Special Recess`. Thankfully it was sunny so the students could play the `sunny version` games.

They played many different games!
"Let's play soccer!"

"Let's play baseball!"

"Let's jump rope!"

"Let's play tag!"

It was so fun! This was a great result from English class!

4th grade students had their third and last class on Let's Try!2 Unit 2 `Let's play cards.` In this class they invited their friends to play games in a `special recess` that each class will have.

After our normal greetings we reviewed the goal for the class and the English for the different games that the students wanted to play during their `special recess`.
There are many fun games to play!

Next, the teachers gave a demonstration on how to invite people to play as well as how to answer that invite.
"Let's play basketball!"
"Sorry!"

Then, it was time for the students to actually invite their friends to play. Everyone planned what game they wanted to play and invited many people.
Wow! This group is very big! Maybe they will play soccer?

"Let's play tag!"
"Yes, let's!!"

After almost all the students had decided what to play they sat down in their groups. Some of the students hadn't decided on a game so each group invited them in turn until they found something they also wanted to play.
Everyone could find a game that they wanted to play! Good job everyone!

Next, we asked the students if there was anything that they had wanted to say but they didn't know the English.
Many people had something they wanted to say! Many of the students wanted to ask the reason why their friend had declined their invite or they wanted to decline in a nicer way.

Ms. Emily taught us how to do that in English.
"Let's play soccer!"
"Sorry!"
"Why?"
"I like tag!"
"Okay! See you!"

Then, we realized that the forecast for the special recess was for rain so we decided to invite our friends again, this time with a rainy day plan.
"Let's do origami!"

"Let's play table tennis!"

"Let's play hide and seek!"

After everyone had found a game to play it was time for feedback and reflection.
Many students wrote about the English they had learned.

"I learned that I could say `Why?` and it made me feel better about my friends declining an invite.`

Good job everyone! `Special Recess` will be so fun! Let's enjoy it!

4th grade students had their second class on Let's Try!2 Unit 2 `Let's play cards.` In this class they practiced inviting their friends to play something.

First, after greetings, we asked students to remember what sports and games they had talked about in the previous class.
Ms. Emily put them on the board and everyone practiced together.

Next, we practiced inviting our friends to play. We split the class in half with half of the students asking and the other half answering.
The students who were answering could reply depending on their feelings about that sport: `Yes, let's!` or `Sorry!`.

Some students also helped to demonstrate.
"Let's play soccer."
"Yes, let's!"

Next, we introduced the games that we would play in this class.

We wanted some games that the students could easily play right away.
We practiced the pronunciations together.

Next, after watching a teacher demonstration it was time for the main activity. Everyone invited their friends to play.
"Hello!"
It's always good to start with a greeting.

"Let's play janken."
"Yes, let's!"

There were many fun games to play together.
"Let's play!"

"Look at this!"

"This is fun!"

Half-way through the activity the teachers picked some students to give a good demonstration.
Nice gestures!
The students all tried again while thinking about the good points of the demonstration.

At the end of the activity the students talked about what had bothered them during the activity.
"When my friends said `Sorry!` I wanted to know the reason. I felt sad."
"Next time let's ask `Why?` then your friend can answer `I like ~` and tell you the reason."

Good job 4th grade. Let's do our best in the next class!

4th grade students have recently been studying a new topic. They have been studying Let's Try!2 Unit 2 `Let's play cards.` In the first class on this topic they learned about different games and weather.

After our usual greetings Ms. Emily told us about different games she played when she was in elementary school. Depending on the weather she did different things.
"On sunnny or cloudy days we played `What's the time Mr. Wolf`. It's like `daruma-san ga koronda`."

We told the students that at the end of this topic they will have a special recess time. We asked them what kinds of games they would like to play during this time.
Different classes had different ideas. 3-2 wanted to play many of the games that Ms. Emily had introduced.

3-1 wanted to play games like othello and shogi.

Next, we watched some videos from the digital textbook. We had to listen carefully to try and pick out the words that people used to invite their friends to play with them.
"They used the word `Let's ~`."
"That's right!

After watching the teachers do a demonstration some of the students also took turns to be invited to play games.
"Let's play dodgeball!"
"Yes, let's!"

"Let's read a book!"
"Sorry!"

"Let's do origami!"
"Yes, let's!"

Next, we had the whole class ask one student together. The students had to pick something that they thought their friend would agree to do.
"This one?"

"No no!"
"This one?"
"Yes!"
"Okay. Let's ask this one together!"

The students repeated the question after Ms.Emily until they were confident enough to answer by themselves.
"Let's play `What's the time Mr. Wolf?`!"
"Yes, let's!"

The students had to answer with their true feelings so sometimes they didn't want to play the game suggested.
"Sorry!"

After that everyone wrote what they thought about the class.
"We learned about some new games in Scotland. I want to play those games with my class!"

Good job everyone!

4th grade students have been studying Let's Try!1 Unit 4 "I like blue." In the last lesson they researched the top 3 popular colors in their class. In this lesson they will be designed t-shirts for our school character, Anerjiro, and picked the most popular t-shirt in their class to make into a poster.

After greetings and the chant, everyone started to design their t-shirt.
They used the top 3 popular colors and were free to design any kind of t-shirt.

Everyone thought hard about what other people would like.

They tried their best to make cool and interesting t-shirts.

Next, after a demonstration by the teachers, everyone got together in groups.
Each group asked another group "What's your favorite t-shirt?". The students had studied this phrase during Tomilish Time.

Each student could pick their favorite t-shirt from the other group.
"Hmmmm... I like number 2."

"I like this one."

Everyone enjoyed seeing all the t-shirt designs.

The most popular t-shirt from each group was put on the blackboard for everyone to see.
The students are looking at the t-shirts very closely.

The students could vote for their favorite t-shirt on the blackboard.
In this way we could chose the most popular t-shirt in the class.

We used the most popular designs to make a `Let's try!` card for our school mascot, Anejiro. We will use this card in class when there is a difficult activity to motivate the students.
Class 1's top 3 colours were:
1. Blue
2. Yellow
3. White
The most popular design looks like this:
Nice flowers!

Class 2's top 3 colours were:
1. Blue
2. Green
3. Red
The most popular design looks like this:
Great pattern!

Class 3's top 3 colours were::
1. Yellow
2. Purple and Black (draw)
The most popular design looks like this:
Great use of color!
Good job 4th grade students! We are looking forward to using the new `Let's try!` cards in class.

4th grade students have started studying Let's Try!1 Unit 4 "I like blue." In this unit they will be designing t-shirts for our school character, Anerjiro. In order to design their t-shirts they used this lesson to research the top 3 popular colors in their class.

We started class with our usual greetings and questions.
"Look at the sky. How is the weather today?"
"It's sunny!"
"That's right. It's sunnny!"

After our greetings we had `Teacher Talk`. The students had to listen to the teachers talking, try and catch some of the words and think about what they were saying.
"I like yellow. Do you like yellow?"
"Yes, I do! I like suzume odori. Do you like suzume odori?"
"No, I don't. I like soccer."
"Oh!"

After the chant, we reviewed the English words for colors.
Then we did the chant from Let's Try!1 Unit 4 "I like blue."

Next, the teachers did a demonstration for the main activity of the lesson.
"Do you like yellow?"
"Yes, I do!"

After the demonstration the teachers asked the students what was different about the two teachers ways of asking questions. Ms. Emily asked Ms. Keiko "Do you like~?" questions about all the colors in turn until Ms. Keiko said "Yes". However, Ms. Keiko thought about what color Ms. Emily might like before asking questions. Everyone decided that thinking about the person and then asking questions was the best way.

Next, it was the students turn to interview everyone in their class.
"Do you like purple?"
"Yes, I do!"

Nice smile!

"Do you like green?"
"No, I don't."

Good eye contact!

Half-way through the activity the teachers asked some of the students to give a good demonstration. They did great greetings after finishing questioning each other.
"Thank you! See you!"

After watching the good demonstration the teachers did a bad demonstration to further emphasise their point.
"Wait!"
It's important to properly greet!

The students continued the activity while thinking about the demonstrations.
Great smile!

Nice eye contact!

At the end of the activity we tried to find the student who talked to the most people. The student who talked to the most people told us their results. Each class had different results which was very interesting!

Class 1:
1. Blue
2. Yellow
3. White

Class 2:
1. Blue
2. Green
3. Red

Class 3:
1. Yellow
2. Purple and Black (draw)

In the next class the students will use these results in order to design t-shirts. We are looking forward to seeing their designs.
Good job everyone!

4th grade students had their second English class of the year this week. Their first class was an orientation so this class is their first proper lesson. In this class they studied a mix of Let's Try!1 Unit 1 "Hello!" and Unit 2 "How are you?".

We started the class with studying greetings from around the world in Let's Try!1 Unit 1 "Hello!" . After learning about the different greetings we played an evolution janken game.3rd grade students also did a very similar lesson so you can see a more detailed description of the game: here.
First, everyone watched the teachers do a demonstration. This meant everyone understood the rules without having to have it explained in Japanese.

The students were careful to remember to greet each other before playing janken.
"Hello!"

Everyone really enjoyed doing the janken game.
" Rock, scissors, paper. 1, 2, 3!"

Students who reached the top level first tried to help everyone else.
The teachers praised the students who held their papers up high for everyone to see. "You are thinking about other people. They can easily find you. Good job!"

After that, we did the `Let's Listen` activity on page 4 of Let's Try!1 Unit 1 "Hello!".
The students had to listen to the different characters and match them with the right country.

The students also tried to catch what the characters names were.
Some of the names were very difficult to hear! Everyone tried hard to listen.

After studying about greetings around the world we moved onto Let's Try!1 Unit 2 "How are you?". We learned about the different ways to answer the question "How are you?". This was review for the students as they have studied about this a little in Tomilish Time.
First, the students guessed how their teachers felt by looking at their gestures.
Next, we did a greeting game and everyone did their best to do gestures.
"How are you?"

"I'm fine! Thank you!"

"I'm hungry"

Everyone tried to match their expressions and gestures to what they were saying.

Lastly, we asked the students what they thought about the days class. Students mentioned that they used a lot of gestures. We used this as a chance to teach the students some gestures used in countries around the world. We taught them these gestures:
Ms. Emily did the gesture and the students tried to guess the meaning. Everyone was interested to know the different gestures.

It was a fun class! Well done 4th grade students!

This week 3rd and 4th grade students had their first English classes for this school year. Both grades had orientation where they learned about what they will study for this year, prepared their English files as well as learned more about their teacher Ms. Keiko and each other. In this blog post we'll share pictures of the 4th grade orientation classes.

During our usual greetings we use the question "What day is it today?". In order that the students can answer this question in the future, Ms. Keiko taught the days of the week song.
"Sunday, Monday, Tuesday..."

Next, Ms. Keiko gave a quiz about herself. Everyone guessed the answers to her questions.
"What's my favorite color? Purple?"

"What's my favorite character?"
"Hint, please!"
"Ok! Gesture hint!"
Can you guess?

Next, Ms. Keiko wanted to learn more about the students so everyone did a greeting game.
"What's your name?"

Nice smiles and eye contact!

Lastly, the students created their English files.
Ms. Keiko put an example file on the blackboard.

Everyone practiced writing their names nicely.


Let's write carefully!

Good job everyone! Both 4th and 3rd grade students are looking forward to English class this year. Let's enjoy English!

4th grade students had their fifth and last class on the topic is `This is my day.` using the `Good Morning` picture book. In previous classes the students learned how to talk about their daily routine and made picture story shows (kamishibai) in groups. In this class they performed those shows for the other students.

The groups took turns to perform for everyone.
The students had all drawn pictures about the same character.

Other members of the group held the picture while the student who drew it introduced it in English while doing gestures.
"I get up."

4th grade students have been focusing this year on improving their gestures so they all tried to do them while speaking.
Great gesture!!

The students introduced the daily routine of their character.
"I brush my teeth."

Some students showed great originality. In the storybook the character combs his hair, however Doraemon is a cat, so he is different.
"I comb my whiskers."

I wonder what they are eating.
"I have breakfast."

"I go to school."
The pictures and gestures made it easy for everyone to understand.

"I watch TV."
Souta-kun likes the same T.V. shows as the students!

"I dream a wonderful dream."
Nobita dreams about getting 100 on a test. Of course Doraemon dreams about dorayaki. Nice ideas!

It was very fun to see what the other students had created.
Good job everyone! Let's try hard in English class next year, too!