富沢小学校 Tomilishブログ

Today 6th grade students studied their second lesson on We Can! 1 Unit 2 "When is your birthday?". We focused on listening activities to build their confidence in understanding dates.

The greetings at the start of the class are led by the class leaders for that day.
"Good morning everyone!"

Next, Ms. Emily and one of the students did a demonstration for the greeting game. Recently they have been using the phrase "What is your favorite~?" a lot so we decided to show a demonstration using many other phrases.
"Ms. Emily, can you speak Spanish?"
"Yes, I can! Hola!"

"Can you play the recorder?"
"Yes, I can."

"When is your birthday?"
"My birthday is March 14th."

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

"Can you speak Japanese?"
"Yes, I can!"

Next, we did the chant for that unit with gestures. After that we did `Let's Listen 1` and `Let's Watch and Think 2`.
The students had to listen to the festival descriptions (Let's Listen 1) or watch the video (Let's Watch and Think 2) in order to draw a line from the festival picture to the correct month.

"We hold snowball fights in February."
"Let's draw a line to February."

After the listening activities we played bingo with ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.).
Ms. Emily said the numbers and the homeroom teacher didn't write the number on the board until Ms. Emily was saying the next number. That gave everyone time to think while still making them listen to the numbers that Ms. Emily said.

Everyone listened carefully!

After Ms. Emily said the numbers everyone repeated them.
"First!"

The students tried to get `Bingo!` and everyone enjoyed it so much that we kept playing until someone got a full house (all numbers erased). The students called this `Perfect Bingo`.
"Perfect!!"

Good job 6th grade students. It was a fun class!

This week 6th grade students have started to studying We Can! 1 Unit 2 "When is your birthday?". They studied this topic very briefly last year but this is the first time that they will study it in detail.

As always, we started class with a greeting game. The students used all the English that they have studied so far in order to keep it fresh in their memories.
"What is your favorite sport?"
"I like soccer."
"Me, too."

"What colors do you like?"
"I like blue and green."

"Can you ride a unicycle?"
"No, I can't."

"What's this?"
"It's a key."

The teachers got some students to give a good demonstration.
Great eye contact!

Next, the teachers talked about their birthdays and what they want for their birthday. The students had to listen carefully and pick out the words they knew. After that, we did the chant for that unit and practiced how to ask and answer the question "When is your birthday?". Since the students also studied this last year, it wasn't new for them.

Then, we played the `Famous Peoples' Birthdays` game. The students each got a card with a famous person and their birthday.
They had to pretend to be that person and ask other people about their birthdays. They could swap cards so they had many chances to practice the different months of the year and ordinal numbers.

"What's your name?"
"My name is Chaplin."

"When is your birthday?"
"My birthday is May 15th."

Half-way through the activity the teachers got some of the students to give a good demonstration.
The students really tried hard to become the famous people. They changed their voices and used gestures.
Everyone continued with the activity while keeping the good points about the demonstration in mind.

"What's your name?"
"My name is Shotokutaishi."
"When is your birthday?"
"My birthday is February 7th."

Lastly the students reflect on the class. Some students found famous people with the same birthdays as themselves. Everyone was surprised!

Nice work!

6th grade students had their third class on Hi, friends!2 Lesson 1 'Do you have `a`?' recently.

We started class with a greeting game as usual. Some students volunteered to give a demonstration.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Guess what?"
"Hint, please."
"Mix red and blue."
"Oh! Purple?"
"Yes! I like purple!"
Nice hint!

After watching the demonstration everyone started to greet each other.
Nice gestures!

Great eye contact!

Good job!

Nice smiles!

Next, we did the alphabet chant. The teachers picked some students to dance at the front with Ms. Emily and encourage everyone else to dance.
Nice dancing!

Everyone enjoyed dancing and doing the chant!

Next, we played some alphabet games. First, we played `Collect 5`. The students had to ask their friends and try to collect 5 of the same letters of the alphabet.
"Do you have `g`?"

"Yes, I do!"
"Here you are!"

Another game we played was `Matching pairs`. Each person chose 10 letters of the alphabet. They took turns to ask their partner questions to try and make pairs. The person with the most pairs won.
"Do you have `p`?"

Everyone counted the number of pairs they made at the end of the game.
One of the students managed to make 5 pairs! Wow!

Our last game was the `Alphabet Circle` game. We gave each student a card with a letter of the alphabet and they had to try and make a circle in order of the alphabet by asking their friends, "Do you have `g`?" and answering "Yes, I do. / No, I don't. I have `e`.".
This game needed a lot of teamwork.

The students had to ask many people questions.

They tried to put themselves in the right order.

"We did it! We made an alphabet circle!"

The teachers then checked that the circle was in the right order.
Well done everyone! You did it!

6th grade students recently had their second English class of the week. They continued studying Hi, friends!2 Lesson 1 'Do you have `a`?'. In this class they continued become familiar with lower case letters of the alphabet as well as becoming familiar with the numbers 1-100.

This year, as a step-up from the previous year, the class leaders for that day have been starting class.
"Stand up, please!"
"Let's make eye contact and smile!"

Next, we did our greeting game. For the past few classes the students have been sitting in pairs and trying to continue long conversations. This time the students could freely walk around the classroom but they had to try and continue speaking for as long as they could.
"What's your favorite color?"
"I like blue."

Nice gestures!

Great smile!

After the greeting game we practiced the numbers. We especially practiced the difference between similar sounding numbers such as 16 and 60.
"Numbers like 60 are short. Don't make the sound long."

Then, we played the same number game that we played in the previous class except we used the numbers 61-100.
First the teachers did a demonstration.

Then everyone played the game. We had to be careful to say all the numbers in English. The students could ask the teachers for help if they couldn't remember how to pronounce a number.
Some of the games became intense. The students were very focused!

Some of the students wanted to battle their teachers, too.
Everyone tried hard to win. You can do it!

After playing the game a few times, it was time for the alphabet song.
The students have become very used to this song so we only did the karaoke version.

Next, we did the alphabet quiz. Ms. Emily showed some folded lower case letters and everyone had to guess what they were.
"What's this?"
"y? v? x? w?"

Ms. Emily compared the folded letters to letters on the blackboard as the students suggested some answers.
"h?"
"h...yes, it could be an `h`."

The students thought very hard about the shapes of the different letters.
"Oh! I know! I know! It's `n`!!"

Lastly, we played the secret message game.
The teachers told everyone some numbers that we used to find the secret word.

The students had to listen to the numbers very carefully.
"What number was it? 87?"

We checked the answers together.
Can you tell what the secret word was? The missing letters are o, c, k. It's the name of a watch brand. It was the most difficult quiz!

At the end of the class the teachers asked the students to talk about what similarities and differences they had noticed between the letters.
"b and d look very similar."
"Yes, that's right! It's easy to make a mistake with these letters."

Good job 6th grade!

After finishing orientation last week, 6th grade students have started studying Hi, friends!2 Lesson 1 'Do you have `a`?'. In this class they tried to become familiar with lower case letters of the alphabet as well as the numbers 31-60.

We started class with a greeting game. The students had to try and speak in pairs for as long as they could using English. They could ask each other many questions.
"How do you spell your name?"

The teachers got some of the students to give a good example.
Clear voices! Good job!

After the greeting game we did the alphabet chant. We did different versions of the chant such as the teacher pointing to letters and the students saying those letters in a loud voice or skipping those letters. We also danced to the chant.
The students have become very good at doing the dance. It's very fun.

Next, we did the number game. First, we practiced saying the numbers 1-60.
Everyone said the numbers together.

Next, the students got into pairs and each person could say between 1 and 3 numbers. The person who said the number 30 was the winner.
The students used a number sheet to check as they said the numbers.

After playing once using the numbers 1-30, they changed partners and did the game again with the numbers 31-60.
It was a fun way to practice numbers.

Last, we looking at some pictures taken around the school and tried to see what alphabet we could find.
We see this sign every day.

Some of the posters also have English on them.
So cute!

The English posters in the school have both upper and lower case letters.
The students are going to search for lower case letters in their daily lives. It will be interesting to see how many they can find.

Good job everyone!

6th grade students had their first English class of the year. We used the first class as an orientation and used the same plan as with the 5th grade students. The students learned about what they will study this year as well as why we study English. They also prepared materials for class as well as doing some fun English activities, too.

We started class by collecting the tickets the students received in their last class as 5th grade students.
They could exchange their ticket for a sticker. It was a reward for remembering to bring it. We hope they will remember to bring all their English materials to class this year.

We started class with a greeting game. First, one of the students and Ms. Emily gave a demonstration.
They tried to continue their conversation for as long as possible.

After watching the demonstration, everyone spoke in pairs.
"Do you like green?"

"What's your favorite character?"

"Guess what?!"

The teachers asked some students to give a good demonstration.
Good gestures!

Next, Ms. Mayumi talked about why we study English and what everyone will study this year.
Even if the students never leave Japan, they will probably find speaking English useful in the future as the country becomes more and more global.

After, listening to the serious talk it was time to relax a little!
We did the alphabet chant and danced. Everyone did their best and had fun!

Lastly, we listened to the teachers talking about the alphabet. Last year the students only used upper case letters.
Ms. Emily taught everyone about lower case letters.
"You can use small letters. It's more compact!"

Then, everyone prepared their English files while writing their names using upper and lower case letters.
Let's enjoy English class this year, too!

Recently 6th grade students had their fifth and last class on Hi,friends!2 Lesson 7 `We are good friends`. This was also their last English class in Elementary School. They have been making their own original Momotaro skits and they performed those skits in this class.

We started class with some of the students asking the greeting questions instead of Ms. Emily.
"How is the weather?"
"What day is it today?"
"What is the date today?"

After greetings it was time for the students to perform their skits. All the skits were based on the story of Momotaro however the students used their imaginations to make their own original version which made the skits very interesting.
The demons are kidnapping Suicajiro while Momotaro, Grandpa and Grandma are sleeping! Oh no!

"I am Demon King!!"

"Kibidango! Thank you! So delicious! I'm great!"

Grandpa is cutting open the peaches!

Both Grandpa and Grandma have bad backs. Take care!

Everyone is going to Onigashima in a Ferrari!!

The demons are apologising for being bad. Wait? Who is that in the background?

Grandma is making everyone sushi while they are in Onigashima!

Momotaro met Monkey, Dog and Bird already. Who is this? Oh! It's a cat!

Those monsters look so strong!

The monsters are having a great time breaking houses!

After each performance the students who watched gave their opinions on the good points of each skit.
"They used gestures really well. It was easy to understand the story!"

There were prizes for Best English, Best Story and Best Teamwork.
Since all of the students tried so hard, each of the 3 groups in each class got one prize.

Good job everyone!

You worked hard!

Finally the students reflected on their two years of studying English at elementary school.
They thought about what they have learned and also how they want to use English in the future.

The teachers asked some of the students to announce what they wrote.
"I want to use the English I learned here when I go to junior high school."

Lastly, Ms. Emily gave each student a ticket to go to junior high school English class.
All the teachers talked about how hard the students had worked in English class.

"Good luck! You can do it!"

Good job everyone! You all showed interesting and funny skits. Please enjoy English in the future, too!

Today 6th grade students had their fourth class on Hi,friends!2 Lesson 7 `We are good friends`. They have been making their own original Momotaro skits. In the last class they received advice from their classmates about how to improve their skits. They used that advice to work on making their skits better in this class.

For our usual 3 questions during greeting time we had the students ask the questions instead of Ms. Emily.
"Look at the sky. How is the weather today?"

"What day is it today?"

"What is the date today?"

After two years of listening to the questions every English class it is good for the students to try to ask the questions themselves.

After the greetings, Ms. Keiko explained about the 3 prizes that we will give in the next class after watching the skits peformances.
Best English prize
Best Story prize
Best Teamwork prize
It's possible that the same team could win all three prizes or three different teams could get the prizes.

The prizes gave students motivation to practice hard in the class.
The demons are breaking the house.

Momotaro twins are introducing themselves to the demons.
"I'm Peach Boy."

Grandmother is giving Momotaro presents.
"Sword. Here you are!"

The animals are happy to beat the demons!

Beautiful Momotaro is introducing herself to Grandfather.

We are all looking forward to seeing the finished skits! Do your best everyone!

This week 6th grade students had their third class on Hi,friends!2 Lesson 7 `We are good friends`. They have been making their own original Momotaro skits. Since this class in the half-way point in the unit we decided that it would be a good time to check everyones' progress.

Usually after greetings, Ms. Emily asks the students three questions:
"How is the weather today?"
"What day is it today?"
"What is the date today?"
As the students have been answering these questions for two years we decided it would be a good challenge for the students to ask the questions instead.
These three students volunteered to ask the questions. In the next class we'll ask three different students to try.

We asked each of the three groups to show around 1/3 of their skit.
The groups took turns to show the beginning, middle or end of their skit while everyone watched.

Here is a preview of some of the action:
The demons are kidnapping Suicajiro!

Princess Kaguya is arriving in a rocket.

Everyone celebrates getting delicious food.

Momotaro and the Demon Boss decide to get married!

As you can tell their skits are very original! After watching the other students gave advice.
"Your voices were a little small. Please speak louder."

"The story was hard to follow. Please add more gestures"

After listening to the advice the groups had a short time to discuss the advice they were given.
"Let's change this scene so it's easier to understand."

Next week, we have our last two English classes for the school year. We will use one class to practice our skits and then everyone will perform in the last English classes. Watching the skits will be very interesting!

This week the 6th grade students continued to create their original skits for Hi,friends!2 Lesson 7 `We are good friends`. In this class the students tried to finish decided their storyline, lines and actions.

The groups discussed together.
"Last class, we decided that Momotaro's Grandmother likes surfing."

This activity needs a lot of teamwork.
Everyone talked about their ideas together.

The students also split into smaller groups to try and think about their actions and movements.
"What should the demons do here?"

In the following pictures the students are practicing their acting. Can you tell what scenes in Momotaro they are performing?
Is this a monkey?

Momotaro and his friends are fighting the demons. They are strong!
(Don't worry! They are just acting!)

Wow! Momotaro came out of the peach!

Good job 6th grade students! We can't wait to see the finished skits!