HJIS Sendai Aoba Class Blogs 2026-27: Week 3

Hi Dune buddies and families!

We have just completed Week 3, everyone! This week, everyone is slowly becoming more independent. The children are doing a great job getting their lunch and snack items by themselves and putting them away independently. Most friends were also able to put on their smocks after a teacher demonstration. Great work, Dune buddies!

Morning & Afternoon Meeting

This week during our morning meetings, we sang our hello song, weather song, and day of the week song. We also discussed classroom responsibilities, with students taking on roles such as caretaker, line leader, and lunch helper. We sang “Baby Shark” and danced to “Dynamite,” which everyone really enjoyed.

In the afternoon meetings, we read Be Who You Are and It’s ok to be different by Todd Parr. The students were encouraged to participate by joining in with repeated phrases and actions. We ended each day by singing our goodbye song.

This week, we also had our evacuation drill to help students prepare in case of an earthquake. They practiced getting under the table, putting on their safety hats, and moving calmly to the evacuation site.

Language & Literacy

Preschool

In Language and Literacy, we focused on the letter Tt. The children enjoyed a variety of games and fine motor activities to practice and reinforce their learning. These activities supported letter recognition, helped them identify the sound it makes, and encouraged them to connect the sound to words they hear.

We took part in activities such as writing in playdough, letter tracing on sensory bags, ripping tape, phonics swat, and puzzle sorting.

The children’s favorite activity this week was writing in playdough. They flattened the playdough and used chopsticks to practice forming the letter Tt.

Maths

Preschool

In math, we explored matching and sorting sets. We learned how to sort items into different categories such as animals, food, clothes, and vehicles. We also practiced sorting them further by type—for example, identifying whether a vehicle travels on land or in the air. We also worked on identifying which item is different from a group.

Topic Exploration

Our theme this week was “All About Me.” We made self-portraits and practiced cutting skills by snipping “hair” and drawing facial features. We also made handprints for a craft about ourselves, which we will complete next week. For science, we learned about our bodies and used playdough to create body shapes. In music, we had fun making and playing with egg shakers.

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.