富沢小学校 Tomilishブログ

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!

In Tomilish Time we have been studying different adjectives that we can use to describe food. This week the students got together in their grade levels to practice giving quizzes to each other using those adjectives. 1st grade students practiced greetings instead of the quizzes.

1st grade students did their best to make eye contact and smile while greeting each other.
"Hello!"

They are also learning how to ask and answer the question "How are you?". They practiced that during Tomilish Time, too.
"Hello! How are you?"
"I'm happy!"

The other grade levels worked hard to make quizzes using adjectives as hints. Each of the different grade levels followed the same structure.
First, the teachers gave a demonstration of what the students were expected to do.
"What's your favorite kyushoku?"
"Guess what?"
"Hint, please!"
"Brown, white, soft and spicy!"
"Mapo dofu?"
"Yes, that's right!"

First the students practiced giving quizzes in pairs.
The teachers tried to make sure students from different classes were sitting next to each other.

After that everyone was free to walk around the room and give each other quizzes.
"What's your favorite kyushoku?"
"Guess what?"

"Hint, please!"
"It's long."
"Hotdog?"
"Yes!"

The teachers stopped the activity half-way through and asked some good students to give a demonstration. Everyone watched the demonstration to find its good points.
Great gestures and reactions!

Then, everyone restarted the activity while keeping the good points of the demonstration in mind.
Great eye contact!

Good gestures!

Nice smiles!

Good job! We'll mix the different grades in the next Tomilish Time. Everyone is looking forward to it!

6th grade students had their second and third lessons on the topic of Hi,friends!2 Lesson 5 `Let's go to Italy` and We Can!1 Unit 6 `I want to go to Italy.` In these classes they practiced using the phrase "Where do you want to go?" as well as some other questions while pretending to be Passport Control agents and passengers.

Both the second and third classes followed a similar format in order to give the students as much practice as possible with the phrases. After our usual greetings and greeting game we reviewed with a short Teacher Talk. Then, we played a memory game. It's a fun way to practice phrases in groups.

In groups of four, three people ask together "Where do you want to go?".
"I want to go to Italy."

Then everyone asks the next person, "Where do you want to go?".
"I want to go to America. OOO wants to go to Italy."

Then the next person, "Where do you want to go?".
"I want to go to France. OOO wants to go to Italy. *** wants to go to America."

And the game continues, getting harder and hard. The students really enjoy this and it's good practice, too!

Next, we did the Passport Control activity. The students had passports that they made in class with their name, birthday and where they want to go. First, the teachers gave and demonstration and then two students gave another demonstration.
Giving multiple demonstrations helps everyone understand what to do without having to give instructions in Japanese.

After watching the demonstrations, it was time for everyone else to try. They took turns to be Passport Control agents and passengers. They had to ask questions and check the answers.
"What's your name?"

"When is your birthday?"

"Where do you want to go?"

Some of the agents were very strict and made the passengers try again if they didn't speak clearly so everyone had to try their best!
Good clear voice!

Once the students had gotten the hang of the English then they could add another level of difficulty by saying the reason they want to visit.
"Where do you want to go?"
"I want to go to Italy."
"Why?"
"I want to eat pizza."

Good job everyone!

This week during Upper Grades Tomilish Time, 5th grade students prepared alphabet cards to use in future activites and played some simple games. 6th grade students did some activities from the We Can!1 textbook to complement their studies.

5th grade students have just started studying the capital letters of the alphabet. They used this time to prepare some small cards that we will use in many activities.
"Cut out these cards and write your name, please."

The students carefully cut out each card.

By using Tomilish Time the students can prepare the cards without having to take up English class time.
Once the students had finished cutting out the cards they used the cards in order to spell out their name, family name and some simple two letter words such as CD and TV.

6th Grade have started studying We Can!1 Unit 6 `I want to go to Italy.` They did the activity `Let's Watch and Think 2`.
The students watched each video twice in order to try and figure out what the characters want to do in America and Egypt.

When watching the first time the students were told to try and catch a few words if they could. They didn't have to understand everything.

Next, we asked the students to open their textbooks and look at the pictures.
The pictures gave them hints about what the characters were saying. We asked them to pick out 4 key words about each country.

After watching each video for a second time the teachers asked the students what they thought the 4 key words were. The character who wanted to visit America talked about the statue of Liberty, Majoy League Baseball, Time Square and Niagara Falls.
The students were able to pick out these key words well.

Good job everyone!

5th grade students also started a new topic last week. They have started Hi,friends!1 Lesson 6 `What do you want?` and we will also be using some of Let's Try!1 Unit 6 `ALPHABET`. The students have already studied the phrase `What do you want?` when they were 3rd grade students and we also plan to include it later when talking about our birthdays, so for this topic we will mostly focus on becoming familiar the alphabet.

We started class with a greeting game. 5th grade students have recently been focusing on linking their conversations. In order to help demonstrate this Ms. Mayumi did a demonstration with one of the students.
"What's your favorite character?"
"I like Nebaru-kun."
"Oh, I see. Do you like natto?"
"Yes, I do! I love natto."

Then, it was time for everyone else to try, too.
Clear voices!

Good eye contact!

Nice smiles!

Next the teachers asked some students to come to the front of the room. We realized that they were all wear clothes with capital letters on them. We read the English letters together.
"A. T. H. L. E. T..."

"D. R. I.."

Many people were wearing English letters! Ms. Mayumi also showed us some pictures that she took in the area around our school. We all found a lot of English letters in the pictures.
"M. I. Y. A. G. I. It says Miyagi!"

Next, we did the alphbet chant. The students did this chant at the beginning of the year too so it was fun and familiar for everyone.
Everyone danced along with gestures. They are doing the `W` gesture in this picture.

Can you tell what gesture this is?
It's `V`!

Next, we did `Let's Play 1` from the Hi,friends!1 textbook.
The students had to find the capital letters hidden in the picture.

They circled all the letters that they found.

Then, we checked our answers together.
"R is here. Rabbit!"

After that, the students connected the alphabet letters in the order that Ms. Emily said.
"J. T. U..."

At the end all the letters joined together to make a shape. Here is the shape half-way completed:
Can you tell what it will be? It's a ribbon!

In the next class the students will make their own versions of this game and do it with their friends. It sounds like fun!

6th grade students started studying a new topic last week. They have started Hi,friends!2 Lesson 5 `Let's go to Italy` and We Can!1 Unit 6 `I want to go to Italy.` In the first class for this topic they studied the flags of different countries and they also became familiar with the phrases for talking about what country they want to visit.

As always we started class with a greeting game. The teachers asked some students to give a demonstration. They used the English that they have studied so far in order to link their conversation as naturally as possible.
"Can you ride a unicycle?"
"No, I can't but I can ride a bike. Can you ride a bike?"
"Yes, I can."

Then it was time for everyone else to greet each other.
"Hello!"

The students also greeted Ms. Satsuki who was watching the class.

Next, the teachers did a `Teacher Talk` pretending to be in passport control at the airport. The students listened and tried to pick out some words in the conversation. Everyone checked together about the meaning of the `Teacher Talk`.

After that, everyone did the `Where do you want to go?` chant from We Can!1. First everyone just listened twice and then the third time they did their best to chant along.

Then, we did `Let's Play 1` in the Hi,friends!2 textbook.
The students wrote the country names in the blanks before matching the country flags to their pictures.

After that, we practiced how to ask and answer the question `Where do you want to go?`. We practiced with the students asking the teachers and then the teachers asked some of the students. It helps to practice as a big group so that everyone can get confidence.
"Where do you want to go?"
"I want to go to Spain."

The students all discussed what countries would be good to visit.
The world map posters in the classroom were very useful to find some interesting countries.

Good job everyone!

Last week in Tomilish Time we had a special guest. Ms. Satsuki Okura from Tottori Prefecture visited our school for a week to watch our English classes. We used Tomilish Time in order to tell her more about Sendai and learn more about Tottori, too.

We started with our usual greeting questions about the day, date and weather.
"How is the weather today?"
"It's sunny!"

Then we all chanted the starting words together.
"Let's enjoy..."
"...Tomilish Time!"

Ms. Satsuki told us that she has never visited Sendai before.
"It's my first time!"

Ms. Keiko and Ms. Emily introduced some of the famous foods from Sendai.
"We have gyutan, sasakama and oysters."

Next, Ms. Satsuki gave a quiz about famous foods from Tottori.
"It's spicy. It's crispy. Carrots and potatoes."
"It's Tottori curry!"

We gave the students 1 minute to talk in groups about what the teachers had talked about.
"I heard the words `fresh` and `fruit`"
"I hear the word `pears`. I think Ms. Satsuki talked about pears in Tottori."

Ms. Satsuki told us that she didn't know what souvenirs to buy so the other teachers introduced some ideas using adjectives.
"How about Haginotsuki?"
"What's that?"
"It's round. It's sweet. It's soft."
"Oh, nice!"

Next, we practiced the adjectives that the teachers had used.
"It's fresh!"

The students practiced the pronunciations in their classrooms with gestures.
"It's crispy."

"It's sweet."

After, practicing it was time to say goodbye.
"Have a nice day!"

Thank you Ms. Satsuki for taking part in Tomilish Time!

Every Monday morning we have reading time. Ms. Emily, Ms. Mayumi and Ms. Keiko often go to class to read English books for everyone.

Recently, Ms. Emily read to class 2-4. She read the book `Little Owl Lost` by Chris Haughton.
It's about an owl who falls out of his nest and has to search for his mother. The other animals listen to his description of his mother and try to find her.

"My mother has big ears."
"Oh! I know your mother! Let's go!"
The squirrel tries hard to find the right animal.

Everyone enjoyed listening to the owl describe his mother and guessing what animal the squirrel would suggest next.
"My mother is big."
"Maybe he will suggest a bear!!!"
It was a very fun book.

Ms. Keiko read to class 2-3. She read the book `What's in the Witch's Kitchen?` by Nick Sharratt.
The students read this book in English class last year, too. The students can pick whether to open the containers in the kitchen up, down, left or right. Depending on the way each container is opened it either contains something nice or something nasty.

"Shall we open it? Up? Down?"
"Up! Up!"

"I wonder if it's something nice..."
"Oh no! It's spiders!!"
It's a very intersting book.

Everyone looks forward to English reading time!

Recently 1st grade students had their first English class of the year. In this class we focused on how to have good communication (eye contact etc.) as well as the numbers 1-10 and the question "How many?". 1st grade students had really been looking forward to English class so everyone had a lot of fun!

First, after greetings, we did a silent greeting game. We talked about how making eye contact and smiling is important to communication. The students had to greet each other without saying anything.
Good eye contact!

After the silent greeting game it was time to try anything, and this time the students could say "Hello!" and "See you!" to each other. As well as the main key words `eye conact` and `smile` we also added another important key word: `listen`. The students had to take care to listen to what the other person said to them.
Nice smile!

Good eye conact!

The teachers picked some students to give a good demonstration.
Everyone had to watch and think about the demonstrations good points.

After the greeting game, we sang the `Hello Song` as a class and in pairs.
"I'm good! I'm good! I'm good, thank you and you?"

Then, the teachers talked to each other and the students tried to catch some English words that they knew.
"Wow! You have many pencils! How many pencils?"
"How many? Let's count! 1, 2, 3..."

We practiced the pronunciation for the numbers 1-10 in English.
After practicing we sang the `10 Steps Song`.

Everyone enjoyed singing together.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!
8, 9, 10!
8, 9, 10!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7!"

Next, we played the nakamatsukuri game. The teachers hit a tambourine. The students had to count together and make groups of that number.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5! Let's make groups of 5!!"

After everyone had made their groups we checked each group together by counting.
"1, 2, 3, 4!

"1, 2.."

Lastly, Ms. Emily read the book `Spot Can Count`.
"Look! It's a horse! How many horses?"
"1!"
"That's right!"

We counted all the animals together.
"How many cows?"
"10!"
"Let's count! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! 10 cows!"

The students enjoyed listening to the story and counting together.

Lastly the students reflected on the class. They talked about what they learned in the class as well as what they want to study during English class in the future.
"I want to study the seasons in English!"

Good job 1st grade students!

6th grade students had their fourth and last lesson studying We Can!1 Unit 5 `She can run fast. He can jump high.` In this class they gathered together as a grade to give each other the `Who is he/she?` quizzes that they created about their friends.

As usual we started class with a greeting game. Two of the students gave a good demonstration using the phrase `Can you~?`.
"Can you fly?"
"No, I can't. But, I can run!"

After watching the demonstration, everyone had to talk to at least two boys and two girls while trying to ask `Can you~?` questions.
"Hello!"

"Can you swim?"

"Yes, I can!"

After the greeting game, we did the chant together. The 6th grade students have become very good at doing this chant.
They did gestures, too!

Next, we reviewed the different words to describe someone's personality.
"Smart!"

The students repeated the words to practice the pronunciation.
"Smart!"

We also asked students questions to check the meaning.
"Who is smart in this grade?"
" ~ is smart!"

Next, the teachers gave two demonstrations. They gave a good demonstration and a bad demonstration for giving quizzes.
They asked the students which demonstration was better and why.

Then it was time for the students to give their quizzes. First they gave their quiz to the person sitting next to them (we made sure that everyone was sitting next to someone from another class).
Nice eye contact!

Good gestures!

Nice smiles!

After practicing in their pairs everyone was free to give their quizzes to anyone from the other classes.
"He can play basketball."

"He can cook."

"He is friendly."

"Who is he?"

Good job everyone. Your quizzes were very interesting!