HJIS Sendai Aoba Class Blogs 2026-27

Hello, Desert Class families!

Morning & Afternoon Meeting

During our morning meetings, we sang our Hello Song, Weather Song, and Months of the Year Song. We also discussed our classroom responsibilities, with students taking on special roles such as caretaker, line leader, and lunch helper. This week, the students enjoyed discussing and sharing photos of what they like to do at home with their families. It was wonderful to see everyone excited to talk about their favorite activities and learn more about their classmates' lives outside of school. Thank you to everyone who has shared photos so far, we look forward to seeing more! During our afternoon meetings, we listened to an English story about Tanabata, helping the students learn more about the festival and the traditions celebrated during this time of year.

Language & Literacy

Preschool

This week in Language & Literacy, we learned about the letter Dd. We used Jolly Phonics Classroom to introduce and review the letter sound, sang our Jolly Phonics songs, and practiced blending sounds to read simple words. The students also reviewed all of the sounds from Jolly Phonics Sets 1 and 2 while building confidence with letter recognition and early reading. Throughout the week, the students completed a variety of hands-on activities. They created a D is for Dot craft using colorful dot stickers, filled the outline of the letter D with playdough by rolling and cutting it with plastic scissors, searched for previously learned letter sounds hidden inside kinetic sand, and completed a picture hunt by matching initial sounds to the correct pictures. A favorite activity this week was the kinetic sand phonics hunt. The students loved digging through the sand to discover hidden letter sounds while practicing their phonics in a fun and engaging way.

Maths

Preschool

This week in Math, we reviewed the numbers 1–10 through a variety of hands-on games and activities. The students practiced number recognition, counting, and one-to-one correspondence while working both independently and as part of a team. Throughout the week, the students completed a counting activity using number mats, formed numbers with playdough, and worked together in a cooperative challenge where they transported the correct number of balls using only paper cups to match the numbers shown on cones. They also created number ice creams by placing the correct number of dot stickers onto each cone and finished the week by painting numbers using Q-tips and paint. A favorite activity this week was the team cup challenge. The students enjoyed working together to transport the balls without touching them, demonstrating excellent teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills.

Topic Exploration

This week, our theme was Countries, with a special focus on Japan. Throughout the week, the students explored Japanese culture while also learning that there are many different countries around the world. We began the week by learning about the Japanese festival Tanabata. The students listened to the story behind the festival before creating their own Tanabata crafts over two lessons. They also learned about the world by exploring countries such as Spain, France, and South Africa, comparing traditional foods, dances, and famous landmarks with those of Japan. It was wonderful to hear the students proudly share that they are from Sendai, Japan! The students also enjoyed learning and dancing to several traditional Japanese dances, including Soran Bushi, Awa Odori, and the Sendai Sparrow Dance. We also became engineers during a STEM challenge inspired by Japan's long history of building strong bridges. The students designed paper bridges supported by foam blocks before testing which bridges were strong enough to stay standing. They enjoyed making predictions, experimenting with their designs, and discovering how different structures affected the strength of their bridges. To finish the week, the students learned about one of Japan's favorite foods, Japanese curry. After listening to a fun Japanese curry song with Ms. Risa, they created their own curry craft using paper bowls and crumpled paper to represent the different ingredients.

Free Play

Here are some more pictures of friends playing together in the classroom, in the Big Room, at the park, and enjoying other topics, events and activities at school.

Song of the Week

Soran Bushi (

ソーラン節

)

Important Dates

July 15th – Last Day of Term 1
July 16th – PTC 1
July 21st–31st – Summer School (Optional)
August 24th – First Day of Term 2

- The Desert Class Team

Hello, Jungle Class families

Morning & Afternoon Meeting

It was a delightful week to learn and grow again in school. We started singing good morning songs , months of the year, seasons song, and weather song. It was followed by checking our calendar time, assigning class jobs, doing a movement song and sharing about our whereabouts through our Class Dojo photos. Our little learners were certainly coping well and having a great time with their friends throughout the week!
In the afternoon, we had our Show and Tell from our Blue Group. They showed different things from their homes from a kitchen timer, sponge, and more! Next week, we will not have our Show and Tell. We will resume in August. Last, we ended our day by reading a storybook and singing a goodbye song.

Language & Literacy

Pre-K

This week, we kickstarted our lesson through lots of engaging and fun activities to review our phonics and sight word knowledge. First, we read our Raz-Kids book entitled, "Fireflye" , talked about the pictures and the words in the book and did a related worksheet afterwards such as phonics. Then, we learned about our literacy lessons. These are the activities that we did: Jolly Phonics Group 3 through Jolly classroom, interactive games, Alphabet Snakes and Ladders game, and doing some related worksheets for review and mini assessment . We also learned a new sight word "it "this week through a song and did a sight word worksheet right and our favorite songs: matman, on,in,under , by and vowel songs. Last, we continued using our different booklets to hone our writing and reading or blending skills throughout this term. This booklet is individualized and self-paced activity wherein, once they finish it, hey move to next colored booklet like a "level-up game" for them to keep them motivated and challenged as well.

Kinder

Regarding literacy this week, we continued reading our razkids book, "My New City", taking time to identify short vowels, nouns, and verbs on each page. We also gave everyone opportunities to practice reading aloud in groups to build our confidence in public reading and speaking. We also dialed in on digraphs, completing mini booklets of new digraphs everyday in order to enhance our reading ability. Following our reading of the book we played some games that further polished our ability to pronounce and read short vowels, new vocabulary words, and site words. We also spent significant time crafting and writing sentences.

Maths

Pre-K

This week, we started talking about 3D shapes. These are the activities that we did: we sang 3D shapes song, 3D shapes sorting real objects, cube craft making, 3D and 2D shapes interactive game, Sweets Parlor making made of spherical and cylindrical origamis, and some related worksheets for mini assessment too. To recap our weekly lesson, our friends made small origami boxes as their sticker wallets. Then, we went to different classrooms and sold our ice creams, juices, and cupcakes to beat the summer heat! It was so amazing how our Pre-K friends excitedly sold and applied 3D shapes through selling it to other friends and teachers saying, "Ice Cream for Sale". It was truly a memorable time learning 3D Shapes with our little ones!

Kinder

This week we continued our focus on refining our listening comprehension skills alongside working on our subtraction and addition with simple stories in which our jungle friends wrote and solved equations based on the stories we read out loud during our lesson. We worked with numbers up to 20 for subtraction and number up to 30 for addition. We briefly touched on patterns and color coordination within our short stories as well. Alongside our focus on mathematical short stories, we spent time on our booklets, some crafts, and physical based games to supplement our studies!

Topic Exploration

🇯🇵 Throughout the week we explored the topic of Japan through its rich culture, history, and society. We spent time learning about festivals, animals, foods, holidays, and folktales that embody Japan. Our activities ranged from learning a Bon Odori dance and playing rhythm games (similar to リズム天国), learning about the folktale of Kaguya Hime, to making colorful crafts such as summer lanterns, koinobori ornaments, and a bonsai garden. This deeper exploration into our topic allowed for an abundance of creativity and growth from our little ones. We feel that they've come to further appreciate the beautiful culture that they currently live in and experience everyday!

Free Play

Here are some more pictures of friends playing together in the classroom, in the Big Room, at the park, and enjoying Japanese lesson, events and activities at school.