As the year draws to an end, we are beginning to wonder what the children think of their time in Kindergarten. We pose a few simple questions: What is Kindergarten? Yanchuan   Learning. Daniel     Kindergarten are good to make things. Yuri       Kindergarten is a thing to learn about different things. Lerah     Kindergarten share toys. Sophia     To learn math. Lin      Learn letters. Cole    Kindergarten is also to learn Art. Yibo     Kindergarten is kind to f ..read more

As the children become more invested in their inquiry into how ‘Personal journeys show the way that people change and can lead to new opportunities‘ their discussions have gradually become personal. It also showcased their ability to share ideas in a group, listen to each other, develop new ideas, solve problems peacefully and collaborate on planning projects. We have been privileged to witness their development and progress and we are proud to have been a part of their learning journeys this year. It is our new opportunity, we have to do everything by ourselves.  The children b ..read more

To inquire into Who We Are, we looked at the children’s background such as places they call home, where they come from, language they speak and the food they eat. The children explored and discussed their characteristics, abilities, interests, likes and dislikes. They brainstormed their ideas about who they really are and what do they want others to know about them using Mindmap. They shared their ideas and documented them on Seesaw. The children were encouraged to find out about who their friends are and search for something new about their friends ..read more

On April 14th, 2017 the Kindergarten class visited Corelex, a paper recycling plant in Kawazaki. This field trip is a direct result of our unit of inquiry about how materials can be manipulated to suit our purpose and the children’s desire to reduce waste in the classroom. During our weekly big tidy up, a few children noticed the amount of wasted paper in the classroom as well as other materials such as plastic tape, markers and etc. These few children took initiative and presented their findings to the class at a meeting. This action prompted the rest of the class to take bigger actions ..read more

The Kindergarten students have been busy preparing for their first Student-Led Conference. The process started two weeks prior. We introduced this conference as a day for the children to be a teacher to their parents. A question then was “What do you want to teach?” Lin – Pencil roll. Daniel – egg roll. Kodai- egg roll. Lubna – I wanna teach my mum how to do race 100, and I wanna teach her draw. Kaito – Teach how to make a cup from clay. Kai- I wanna teach my mum build stuff. Silas- I want to teach my mummy how to play “make big dots”. Grace – I want to teach my mummy how to do chicken game an ..read more

We were very excited to visit the DP Art Exhibition in the auditorium this year. The exhibition, true to previous years, offered many variety of art pieces for the children to explore. We discussed about how everyone is an artist and artists communicate or express their ideas or feelings through their art pieces. The children were tasked with a question to ponder as they experience the exhibition, “What is the meaning or purpose of the art?” In addition, the children also brainstormed other interesting questions to ask at the exhibition such as: “How did you make it?” and “What ..read more

Our inquiry into how people communicate their ideas and feelings continues to deepen with an opportunity to experience a variety of dolls as well as Hina dolls at the museum. At the entrance, a small group of children noticed a notification saying, “Ms. May, we can take photo but cannot use flash. Look! it says here with the pictures,” thus exhibiting their ability to understand different forms of communication and make sense of the world around them. As always, the children were full of excitement and enthusiasm for our walking field trip to the Doll Museum to view Ohinasama exhibition ..read more

Our discussion about Measurement started with our inquiry into our height. The children already had a few ideas of how to measure and why measurement is important. Grace   Measure means like Kai and me are standing up and if Kai was around like this (standing up against each other) so Kai is bigger than me. Silas    When you want to measure something, measure it, and the woods and you use it and mark things. Yuri     In ELC we measure everyone’s height.  Grace   Important to measure yourself because we don’t know how tall we are.  Silas   ..read more

After much anticipation, the day of the hike finally arrived! The children were eager to see their friends from Takarajima again and to share this special experience together. Enkaizan Hike with Takarajima 2017 from Kindergarten S on Vimeo. Upon returning to the school, we reflected on the experience together. The following is a transcript of our discussion. Lubna – I just play the Takarajima friends. I play a lot with Takarajima and I so happy that Takarajima want play with me. Played like slide. A big, big, big slide. It was so fun. That’s why I happy. Grace – It was difficult when I was tr ..read more

This week, the children have been planning our third and final visit with our friends from Takarajima. The returning students showed the new students a picture from a previous field trip to help give them a better understanding of what to expect. To help the children frame their thinking, we used a compass point thinking routine. We discussed over several meetings what we were excited about, what we were worried about, what we might need and any suggestions we that had for the trip. The following is a transcript for our discussions.    ..read more