HJIS Sendai Aoba Class Blogs 2026-27: Week 18

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.