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. The students continued taking on their classroom helper roles, including caretaker, line leader, and lunch helper. We also reviewed our classroom rules and routines and enjoyed singing many of our favorite songs together. This week marked the start of our Show and Tell presentations. The students proudly shared their favorite vehicles with the class, practicing their English speaking skills while building confidence presenting in front of their classmates. Everyone did a wonderful job listening carefully, asking questions, and encouraging their friends. During our afternoon meetings, we read our Book of the Week, A Lot of Otters, before ending each day by singing our Goodbye Song.

Language & Literacy

Preschool

This week in Language & Literacy, we reviewed the Jolly Phonics Set 2 letter sounds: c, k, e, h, r, m, and d. The students sorted pictures and objects according to their initial sounds by placing them with the correct letter sound. They also enjoyed a Find the Sound game, where they listened carefully to a letter sound before finding and standing by the matching sound card. The students played a phonics fly swatter game by listening for a letter sound and swatting the matching letter. To finish the week, they completed a phonics color-by-code activity by identifying the letter sounds and coloring each section according to the matching sound to reveal a hidden picture.

Maths

Preschool

This week in Math, we explored length and height, learning that objects can come in different sizes and can be compared using words such as long, short, tall, and short. The students compared the lengths of their names by counting the letters before arranging them from the shortest name to the longest. They sorted paper strips into long and short groups, looked around the classroom and out the window to find examples of long and short objects, worked together to arrange strings from the shortest to the longest, rolled playdough into different lengths to compare which was longer and shorter, and built tall and short towers using playdough.

Topic Exploration

This week, our Topic Exploration theme was Transportation: Sea. The students learned about different types of water transportation through a variety of hands-on activities. They created rocking submarine crafts while learning how submarines travel underwater. During our Science activity, the students investigated which objects sink and float. They made predictions before testing different objects in water and observed the results, discovering that some materials float while others sink. The students also designed miniature sailboats using pool noodles, plastic, and straws before testing how wind helps sailboats move by blowing them across the water. They learned about the different parts of a boat and discussed what helps boats float and travel on water. During Music, the students explored rhythm by creating music with everyday objects such as bowls, chopsticks, trays, and toys, discovering that almost anything can be used to make music.

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.

Books of the Week

A Lot of Otters - Barbara Helen Berger

Song of the Week

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Important Dates

September 21st-23rd - No School/ Holiday
September 28th - October 2nd - Literacy week

- The Desert Class Team

Hello, Jungle Class families!

Morning & Afternoon Meeting

Another week has gone by quickly with our ever-growing young learners! 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 opened up our Show and Tell again this term. To begin with, we had our Red Group and talked about their favorite transportation. It was wonderful how they were able to present and speak confidently in front of everyone! Not to mention their incredible answers and how they connect and explain their toy to their favorite vehicle. Next, we had our sharing time for our Class Dojo photos too. What a wonderful time to listen to them speaking in English! Next week, it will be Blue Group with the same topic. Last, we ended our day by reading a storybook and singing a goodbye song. Here's a sneak peek at our new open space library too where our students gather for a storytelling!

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, "The Aquarium" , talked about the pictures and the words in the book. Then, we recalled about our literacy lessons and focused on phonics "oa" through Jolly Classroom. These are the activities that we did: singing our favorite literacy songs: Mat Man song, vowel song, phonics song, interactive games for letter recognition and phonics matching, and doing some related worksheets for review and mini assessment . We also learned a new sight word "will" this week through a song and chant and did a sight word worksheet.

Kinder

This week, we had fun exploring new digraphs, verbs, and adjectives. Through our Raz-Kids story, "Many Fish", we learned an abundance of adjectives that have made our vocabulary vast and colorful, learning new ways to explain things we observe. Some of our new favorite words include, "fancy, shiny, bright, spotted, stripped, elegant", and more! We also took some time to practice sentence crafting and work more on the legibility of our handwriting. We made a few crafts, read books, and completed fun activities throughout the week.

Maths

Pre-K

This week, we ventured on "Weight: Heavy or Light". We focused on comparing weights through tangible materials and enhanced our math vocabulary words such as heavier, lighter, balanced/equal. These are the activities that we did: sang a "weight song", weighing scale exploration, object comparison, weighing scale craft wherein they choose from the vocabulary words and demonstrate it through drawing a heavy or light or equal objects, and a related worksheet. We also continued to use our Maths booklet to help us hone our number recognition and counting skills.

Kinder

This week, we focused on skip counting with odd numbers such as 3, 5, 7, etc. We also complimented our studies with addition and subtraction based activities to synergize both subjects as they make understanding each one easier and fun. Our students had fun completing group activities, coloring and solving pattern-based skip counting equations, crafting, and more! We also learned some new songs to help us recognize strategies that allow us to solve equations in a more friction-less manner.

Topic Exploration

This week we hosted a fun week of learning about water vehicles for our topic exploration time with group activities that involved us making a large-scale ship inhabited with little pirates (representative of us), making an underwater collage with a focus on building a mini submarine to fully encapsulate the scope of underwater exploration via specialized vehicles, and more! We also had a stem-based activity in which we made miniature boats using Legos and foil to test the buoyancy of our boats in order to better understand how and why water vehicles float. These activities provided many opportunities to expand our creativity and collaboration skills. We are so proud of everyone as they continue to work so hard with such enthusiasm and an eagerness to learn!

Free Play

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