HJIS Sendai Aoba Class Blogs 2026-27: Week 22

Hello, Desert Class families!

Morning & Afternoon Meeting

Another wonderful week of learning has begun! Each morning, we sing our Hello Song, Weather Song, Days of the Week Song, and complete our calendar routine together. The students enjoy taking on their classroom helper roles, practicing our phrase of the week, reviewing our class rules, and joining in with movement songs to start the day.

This week, the Desert Class teachers led our whole-school Morning Assembly, introducing the IB Learner Profile trait Open-Minded. We began by reading the story They All Saw a Cat, which showed how different people and animals can see the same thing in different ways. Afterwards, the students worked together in their class groups to design their own unique monsters. Each child contributed ideas about what their monster should look like, encouraging everyone to listen to one another, share different perspectives, and work together to create one final design.

In the afternoon, we enjoy Show and Tell, story time, and end each day by singing our Goodbye Song together.

Language & Literacy

Preschool

This week in Language & Literacy, we are learning the letter sound l. The students practiced recognising words that begin with the l sound through a variety of hands-on activities. They formed the letter l using playdough by rolling it into shape and cutting it to the correct length with plastic scissors. The students also created an L is for Lamp craft using construction paper and flower paper before practicing beginning sounds through an Initial Sound Swat game using fly swatters. To finish the week, they completed an initial sound colouring worksheet, identifying and colouring pictures that begin with the l sound. These activities helped strengthen the students' letter recognition, beginning sound identification, and fine motor skills.

Maths

Preschool

This week in Math, we explored the concepts of full, half full, and empty through a variety of hands-on activities. The students experimented with water using clear cups before using droppers to carefully fill containers to make them full, half full, or empty. Together as a class, we completed two worksheets, carefully observing each picture and deciding whether the containers were full, half full, or empty before circling the correct answer. The students also completed a colouring worksheet, following the instructions to colour the containers that were full, half full, or empty.

Topic Exploration

This week's topic is Autumn. During Music, the students sang and danced in a circle while the teacher stood in the middle holding an umbrella filled with colourful autumn leaves. At the end of the song, the umbrella opened, sending the leaves gently raining down over the students like falling autumn leaves.

For Art, the students created an acorn craft using an Amazon envelope for the top of the acorn and construction paper for the base. They tore flower paper into small pieces and glued them onto the acorn using beautiful autumn colours. Later in the week, the students created a 3D autumn tree. They cut strips of paper into small squares and glued them onto a leaf-shaped piece of construction paper to create the tree canopy. The canopy was then placed into a slit cut into the back of a paper cup, which became the tree trunk. Finally, the students coloured the paper cup with coloured pencils to complete their autumn tree

During Science, the students investigated what happens to acorns in water. They made predictions, observed the changes over time, and compared the acorn placed in water with another kept out of the water, discussing their observations as they explored how seeds begin to grow.

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.