HJIS Sendai Aoba Class Blogs 2026-27: Week 12

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, we also welcomed officials from the Sendai Chuo Police Station who conducted a Stranger Danger Seminar for our students. Through a fun puppet show and interactive presentation, the students learned important safety skills and what to do if they ever find themselves in an unsafe situation. Everyone listened carefully and participated very well throughout the seminar.

We also took part in an evacuation drill this week, giving the students another opportunity to practice staying calm, listening carefully, and following instructions during an emergency.

During our afternoon meetings, we read Maisy Learns to Swim by Lucy Cousins. The students enjoyed joining in with repeated phrases and actions throughout the story. We ended each day by singing our Goodbye Song together.

Language & Literacy

Preschool

This week in Language & Literacy, we learned the letter Rr. We sang our Jolly Phonics song, used Jolly Phonics Classroom, and continued practicing blending sounds to build simple words. The students worked hard to identify beginning sounds and build confidence in their early reading skills.

Throughout the week, the students enjoyed making an "R is for Rainbow" craft by tearing colorful paper and gluing it onto the letter R. They also completed a hidden letter coloring worksheet, played an exciting I Spy game to find objects beginning with the /r/ sound, and practiced blending simple words. A favorite activity this week was creating the rainbow craft while strengthening both fine motor and phonics skills.

Maths

Preschool

This week in Math, we continued learning about shapes. The students explored circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, ovals, and pentagons. Together, we counted how many sides and corners each shape has while practicing shape recognition.

The students enjoyed making shapes with playdough, completing shape lacing activities, tracing shapes with paint and Q-tips, and going on an exciting shape hunt around the classroom. The shape hunt was a class favorite as the students enjoyed searching for shapes they could find in their everyday environment.

Topic Exploration

This week's theme was Water Sports. We learned about different water sports and discussed the equipment used for each activity.

The students visited the Big Room, where they used their imaginations to take part in a variety of pretend water sports. They practiced surfing, swimming, kayaking, and other exciting activities while pretending to explore the water together.

To reinforce our learning, the students created a fun kayaking craft. Using paper bowls as the base of the kayak, they added their own faces and paddles to create themselves rowing across the water.

We also explored the science concept of floating and sinking. The students designed their own foil boats before placing them in water and gradually adding small toys to see how much weight each boat could hold before it sank. Everyone was excited to make predictions and watch the results of the experiment.

During Music, we explored rhythm by reviewing ta, ti-ti, and quarter rests. The students enjoyed playing along to music using egg shakers while practicing different rhythm patterns and listening carefully to the beat.

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.