Hello Cockatoo Class Summer School families!
Morning & Afternoon Meeting
During our morning meetings, we decided our classroom helpers for the day. We also listened and sang a morning song and tried a follow-along dance routine. Because we had many new friends in our classroom and returning friends from elementary school, we did a short self-introduction every morning. This week, we introduced our favorite breakfast foods, seasons, weather and more.
In our afternoon meetings, we shared some some Class Dojo photos sent in by our families and students. We often listened to a story and reflected on our topic exploration for the day.
Language Exploration
Our week-long project for Week 2 was making a poster presentation of why we liked one of the colors of the Olympic rings. Teams of 3 friends would work together to think of as many things that represented their color as possible and then drew them on a poster. Then, on Friday, they presented their poster to the other students.
Just like in Week 1 of Summer School, we also had a mini English comic contest. Students would individually draw and write their own comic and at the end of the week, the teachers would award the students who had the best comics based on the story, the artwork and their use of English.
In the afternoons, we continued to write in our Summer School Journal. Based on the day's topic, the students were encouraged to write a few words or sentences about it and draw a picture.
.jpg)
Physical Activity
This week in the big room, we focused a lot on team sports. There are many team sports in the summer Olympics and to build teamwork and cooperation, we tried doing some team-based activities while moving our bodies. Some activities we played, we did from Week 1 of Summer School such as Musical Chairs and Tag games, but on Week 2, we also introduced some new games. We played Monster Ball where two teams tried to hit a big ball across the other team's line. We also played team bowling where we tried to knock over the other team's cones.
Topic Exploration
Our topic exploration for the week was "Summer Olympics". Each day had a different theme based on the different parts of this international sports event.
On Monday, our theme was making a country flag using chopsticks and paper. We looked at a chart of many flags and chose to draw our favorite ones. We learned about new countries and found similarities and differences between the flags.
On Tuesday, we made an aluminum foil figure using the pictogram of athletes from the Olympics. We shaped and molded the aluminum foil to take the action pose of an athlete from a particular sport.
For Wednesday, the theme was "medals". We made a clay medal using ribbon, yellow clay and sparkles. We molded the shape of a circle and then drew designs using sticks.
On Thursday, we made Olympic torches using colored construction paper. We rolled up the paper into a cone shape and then added designs and stickers to the outside.
Lastly, on Friday, we designed our own Olympic mascot. First we looked at mascots from previous Olympics and mascots of the sports teams of Sendai. We then made our own mascot designs.
Free Play
Here are some more pictures of friends playing together in the classroom during free play.
Whether it was learning a new game, doing an interesting craft, or making new friends, we hope that that Summer School at Horizon Aoba was a memorable experience for all of our participants. Thank you for joining us this summer and please have a wonderful and safe summer with your families.
- The Cockatoo Class Summer School Team
