富沢小学校 Tomilishブログ

6th grade students had their second lesson this year studying We Can!1 Unit 5 `She can run fast. He can jump high.` In this class they made `Who is he/she?` quizzes about their teachers in order to prepare to make similar quizzes about their friends in a later class.

At the start of the class some of the students gave a demonstration for the greeting game. They made sure to ask many `Can you ~?` questions.
"Can you play the recorder?"
"No, I can't."

After watching the demonstration it was time for everyone else to try.
Good eye contact!

Nice gestures!

Next, we listened to the chant from We Can!1 Unit 5. Everyone tried their best to do gestures along with the chant.
The students have been able to learn the chant very easily because they did a similar chant last year.

After that, we did a listening activities. We did `Let's Watch and Think 2` from We Can!1 Unit 5.
First the students listened to a boy describing what two of his friends can do. They tried to catch some of the words and take notes. They didn't have to understand everything.

Next, they watched a video of those two friends talking and describing directly what they can and can't do.
"If they can do it, draw a circle. If they can't, write a triangle."

Everyone checked their answers from the first part by completing the second part.
We actually did this same activity last year. The students found it really difficult at that time. This year, it was still a little difficult but everyone found it much easier than before.

Next, the homeroom teachers introduced someone to the students through a quiz.
"He can sing. He can dance. He can act. He is cool. Who is he?"
"Hint, please."
"He can dance like this!"
"Oh! Hoshino Gen!"

The students enjoyed listening to the quizzes.

Next, we reviewed the adjectives that the students learned in the previous class.
We also introduced some pictures of the teachers at the school. The students had to make quizzes using those teachers.

After some thinking time the students got into groups and gave their quizzes to each other.
"He can play soccer."

"He is cool."

"Who is he?"

After doing quizzes in groups the teachers picked some of the students with interesting quizzes to give their quizzes to the whole class.
"She is funny. She can play the piano."

"I know! I know!"

Good job 6th grade students! Let's make more quizzes in the next class!

5th grade students recently had their second lesson on the topic Hi, friends!1 Lesson 3 `How many?`. These students studied telling the time last year as well as the numbers 1-60 so in this class we studied the numbers 1-100.

We started class with a greeting game. Ms. Emily and one of the students gave a demonstration using the phrase `How many?`.
"How many diamonds?"
"Let's count. 1, 2, 3, 4...oh! So many!"

After watching the demonstration it was time for the other students to ask each other.
"How many letters?"

"How many circles?"

After the greeting game Ms. Emily and Ms. Mayumi did Teacher Talk.
"Look at my pencil case."
"Wow! It's so big!"
"Guess! How many pens and pencils?"
"Hmmm... maybe 10?"
All the students also guessed the numbers of pens and pencils in Ms. Mayumi's pencil case.

Then, everyone checked together.
"Let's count!"
"1, 2, 3, 4..."

After that we decided to find out which student had the most pens and pencils in their pencil case. Everyone stood up and we counted together. When the student finished counting they sat down. The last person standing had the most pens and pencils.
"Hmmm...how many pens and pencils?"

After that, we did the chants from Let's Try!1 Unit 3 `How many?`.
The students tried to do actions while saying as much of the chant as they could.

Next, we counted the balls that the 1st grade students used during sports day. The four classes want to make the competition fair so they need four sets of the same number of balls. In order to do this the 5th grade students needed to count all the balls.
Everyone counted together in small groups. It was important to count as a group so everyone could practice counting.

The groups did their best to count carefully.

After each of the groups had finished we asked them "How many balls?".
We collected all the results together so we knew which colour of balls had the least amount.

This team had 44 balls!

We added all the numbers together in English.
"51 plus 49 equals?"
"100!"
"That's right!"
Then we asked all the students to count out 88 balls so that each class would have the same amount.

Everyone took turns at putting the balls into the box while counting together.
It was very easy to lose count so everyone had to count carefully together!

It was a fun activity to do together. Everyone felt happy when they counted everything perfectly!

Good job everyone! 1st grade students can now use the balls in their P.E. classes!

This week we started to study a new topic in Tomilish Time. This past year we have been learning how to give a quiz by studying phrases such as "What's this?" and "Guess what?". In order for the students to give hints to their friends we decided to study adjectives.

"Let's enjoy Tomilish Time!"
"Yeay!"

We asked our normal questions as part of our greetings.
"What day is it today?"
"It's Wednesday!"

Next, everyone listened to Ms. Keiko and Ms. Emily talking about what they had done at the weekend. Everyone had to look at the pictures and listen to the English in order to try and work out what they were saying.
"I went to Morioka."
"Really? Me, too!"

"Why?"
"I danced suzume odori in Kizuna Festival."

"How about you?"
"I played tennis with my friends."

"Morioka has a lot of delicious food. What did you eat?"
"Guess what?"
"Hint, please."
"Cucumber, watermelon, kimchi, meat"
"More hints, please."
"Chewy, spicy and sour!"

The students all listened carefully and tried to guess.

"I ate reimen. It was delicious."

Ms. Keiko talked about what she had eaten. The hints were: `red beans, butter, soft and famous`. She ate fukudapan.

Next, everyone practiced the words they had heard.
"Repeat after me. Spicy!"

"Spicy!"

After that, one of the 6th grade students helped to interview Mr. Endo.
"What's your favorite kyushoku?"
"Guess what?"
"Hint, please!"
"Spicy, brown, carrots, potatoes and meat."
"Curry and rice?"
"Yes! I like curry and rice!"

Everyone enjoyed listening to their interview and guessing Mr. Endo's favorite kyushoku.

"Have a nice day! See you!"

Thank you to 6th grade for helping with the interview!

6th grade students had their first lesson studying We Can!1 Unit 5 `She can run fast. He can jump high.` They also partly studied this unit last year so this time we will focus on improving on what they already know such as adding descriptive words such as `well`, `high` or `fast`.

We started class with our usual greeting game. The students could use any of the English they have studied so far to try and make natural conversations. Some of the student volunteered to give a good demonstration to everyone else.
Good gestures!

Nice smile!

Everyone did their best to link their questions together naturally.
"I like red. Do you like red?"
"No, I don't but I like blue. Do you like blue?"

"Do you like music?"
"Yes, I do."
"Can you sing?"
"No, I can't but I can play the recorder. Can you play the recorder?"

Next, we listened to the chant from We Can!1 Unit 5. The chant was new to the students as we didn't use it last year. However, since the phrases were familiar to them everyone could easily do the chant after listening to it a few times.

After doing the chant the teachers asked some students to introduce their friends in the style of the chant and talk about what they can do.
"He is my friend. He can play baseball."

"She is my friend. She can play the recorder."

After that, we introduced some words describing a person's personality. The students will also study this topic in further detail in Unit 9 `Who is your hero?` however we wanted to introduce some of the words now so that they are spread out more, making it easier for the students to remember.
The teachers gave hints and did small skits in order to introduce the different words.

Next, we introduced famous people, characters and teachers and asked the students to match them with the different words.
"Is she kind? Is she funny?"

The result looked like this:
The students think Mr. Takeyuki is very cool!

Finally the students filled in their feedback card.
"I was happy to learn words to describe my friends good points."

Nice work everyone!

This week both 5th and 6th grade students did activities to suppliment their studies in their English classes during Upper Grades Tomilish Time. Both grades have started studying new topics.

5th grade students have started studying Hi,friends!1 Lesson 3 `How many?`. After our usual greetings we did the chant from Let's Try!1 Unit 3 `How many?`.
Everyone stood up and did the chant together with gestures.

"How many pencils?"

Next, we did the `Let's Play : How many apples?` activity from the same unit in Let's Try!1.
Everyone had to count together.

First we only showed the picture for a few seconds and then asked the students to guess the number.
"How many tomatoes?"

Next, we showed them the picture for a long time so everyone could count together.
"1, 2, 3 ..."

6th grade students have started studying We Can!1 Unit 5 `She can run fast. He can jump high.` We did the `Let's watch and think` activities from both Unit 1 and Unit 5. The point was not to try and understand everything but instead to try and catch some words.
"What words did you catch?"

"I know! I heard `table tennis`."
"Good job!"

Everyone listened carefully!

Good work everyone!

Recently, 6th grade students had their last lesson on We Can! 1 Unit 2 "When is your birthday?". Since they studied about birthdays last year as well we used the opportunity to study a different topic using dates. The students created their own original events and did presentations about them. Half of the students presented about their events in the previous class and the rest of them finished in this class.

As we wanted a lot of time for the students to do their presentations we skipped our usual greeting game and chants and went straight to the presentations.

First, Ms. Mayumi and one of the students did a demonstration. While the student demonstrated how to do an enthusiastic presentation, Ms. Mayumi showed the students watching and listening what sorts of reactions they should make.
"Oh! Nice idea!"

After watching the demonstration it was time for the other students to do their presentations.
"Hello!"

First, they introduced themselves.
"My name is ~."

Then they introduced their original event.
"I produce `Dragonfly Festival`".
"Oh!"

The students also encouraged others to react to their event annoucements.
"I produce `Eclair Festival`. Yeay!!"

After that the students talked about the date of their festival.
"It's on February 9th."
"Why?"
The students explained their reasoning in Japanese, "The numbers 2 and 9 sound like `meat` so it's on February 9th."

After that the students talked about the activities that are part of their event in Japanese.
Nice smile!

Good eye contact!

Good job!

Great gestures!

The students ended their presentations by asking the other students to come to their event.
"Please come! See you!"

Everyone tried their best. This was their first time doing a presentation so it was a little difficult for them.

Here are some examples of the events that the students created.
Eggs from around the world! Sounds interesting!

I want to try foreign sweets, too!

Talking is so fun!

Good job 6th grade students! You did your best!

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.

5th grade students had a class studying two different topics. Recently they have been studying Hi,friends!1 Lesson 5 `What do you like?` and since the students didn't finish their presentations of their T-shirts in the last class we used the first part of this class to complete that topic. We also started a new topic, Hi, friends!1 Lesson 3 `How many?`. It was a very busy lesson!

We started class with our usual greeting games. Ms. Emily and one of the students did a demonstration. We wanted to demonstration that you can have more than one answer to a "What ~ do you like?" question.
"What colors do you like?"
"I like red, yellow and purple."
"Nice!"

After watching the demonstration it was time for all the students to greet each other.
Good gestures! Gestures are a very important part of communication!

Nice smile! Good job!

Great eye contact! We need to look at each other when we talk.

The students enjoyed asking each other all sorts of questions.
"What animals do you like?"
"I like cats."

Some students even used phrases they had previously studied in Tomilish Time.
"What sports do you like?"
"Guess what?"
"Hmmm....."

Everyone tried hard to talk to many different people.

After the greeting game the teachers asked the students who they had talked to and what they said. This helps the students to realise the importance of listening carefully when they are speaking with each other.
"I asked about what colors she likes and she said that she likes purple and green."

Next, we had the remaining students, who had not talked about their T-shirt designs in the previous class, complete their presentations.
"Who designed this T-shirt?"

The students talked about how they designed their T-shirts.
"I thought about the shapes they said they like. They like stars the best so I made the star the biggest."

The students receiving the T-shirts also talked about what they liked.
"I like these colors."

"It's nice!"

After the presentations the students wrote their feedback about this topic.
Many students were happy to learn about what shapes and colors their friends like.

We had some students present what they wrote.
"It was fun to design t-shirts while thinking about the other person."

Next, we had `Teacher Talk` for the start of our new topic, Hi, friends!1 Unit 3 `How many?`. When Ms. Mayumi visited Rakuten with the 5th grade students she noticed that one of the students had many keychains on their backpack. She borrowed the backpack so everyone could count the keychains together.
"How many keychains?"
"18, 19, 20, 21! 21 keychains!"
"Wow! So many!"

After that, we did the chants from Let's Try!1 Unit 3 `How many?`.
Since it was the first time to hear the chant we listened a few times before trying to say as much of the chant as we could together.

Lastly, we played rock, paper, scissors (janken) in pairs. The teachers did a demonstration first. Everyone played ten times.
"Rock, paper, scissors. 1, 2, 3!"

The students really enjoyed this activity.

They wrote a circle if they won, a triangle if they drew and a cross if they lost. Then everyone counted their shapes.

"How many circles? Raise your hand. 1 circle!"
Good job everyone! It was a fun class!

Recently both 5th and 6th grade students have been doing presentations in their English classes so we used Upper Grades Tomilish Time for the students to show their presentations to students from other classes.

5th grade students had designed t-shirts for their friends and made presentations about those t-shirts. All the students gathered together in the same room and we started by going a greeting game. The students asked each other "What ~ do you like?" questions. Everyone had a lot of fun!
"What TV programs fo you like?"
"I like Itte Q."
"Oh! Me, too!"

"What sports do you like?"
"I like volleyball!"

After the greeting game, representatives from each class showed their design presentations to everyone. First, the students asked each other questions without showing the designs.
"What shapes do you like?"
"I like stars."
"What colors do you like?"
"I like blue and purple."
After asking these questions the students showed their designs.
They explained what they had thought about while designing the t-shirt and the student receiving the t-shirt gave their reaction.

After each student had shown their designs the other students also talked about the good points of their presentations.
"They really thought about the other person."

Lastly, they exchanged their t-shirt designs.
"This is for you."
"Thank you!"

6th grade students had created their own original events as part of learning about months and dates. All the students gathered together in the same room and we started by going a greeting game. First we asked two students to give a good demonstration. The students could use any of the English they have studied so far in order to have a natural conversation.
"What sports do you like?"
"I like baseball."
"Me, too! Can you play baseball?"
"Yes, I can. What baseball team do you like?"
The students were great at linking questions naturally.

After watching the demonstration it was time for everyone else to talk to each other.
It was interesting to talk to students from other classes.

Next, the students could introduce the events they created to students from other classes. By mixing the classes we can make sure that the students can repeat the same activities and have a further chance to practice their English without becoming bored.
"I produced `Game Day`."

"It's on April 1st."

Students really enjoyed hearing about their friends events.

"Great!"
Good job everyone! You created some great events!

In Tomilish Time we had our last mixed grades session for this unit of Tomilish Time. From next week we will start focusing on some new English so we will change back to TV broadcasts. This week, 6th grade students were away on their school trip so 1st grade students mixed together within their grade. Also, 5th and 2nd grade, and 3rd and 4th grade students mixed together.

Tomilish Time started with everyone greeting each other.
"Good morning! How are you?"

The teachers or some students gave a demonstration of the greeting activity.
"Hello!"

After watching the greeting it was time for everyone to greet each other.
"Hello!"

"How are you?"

"I'm good, thank you!"

"Do you like blue?"

"Yes, I do!"

Nice smiles!

Good eye contact!

Even the teachers got involved in greeting everyone.

"See you!"

After the activity the teachers asked some of the students who they talked with, what they said and for a good point about their partner.
"He has a clear voice!"

Good job everyone!