Currently, AMICUS is in a halt for summer.
I hope everybody is having a good summer break.
Here are the footsteps of the first graders right before the summer break.
Three months already passed since April, when G1 students walked through the school gates.
It may feel like the entrance ceremony happened only weeks ago… and now we find summer is here, and we’re on break!
Here is a quick summary of students’ FOOTSTEPS until today.
ICT
It might feel strange to hear about G1 students learning about ICT… I mean, come on!! They’re only in 1st grade!! Why do they even need ICT??
We moved to the PC room where the desk-top PCs are… and students log in to their accounts and practice “English reading.”
Oops… Some students accidentally opened a “source” file, full of technical material. We sit quietly, holding our hand up in the air, waiting our turn for the teacher’s attention.
In other classes, students took a photo image of their personal diary and edited by adding text and video footage.
Art
“Let’s take out the ‘yellow paint’, and put some in ‘the pallet’.”
“There are 2 shades of yellow!!!”
This is one typical conversation heard among students during a painting lesson in G1. It can be a bit tricky with Japanese paint sets, since one color is labelled “yellow”, and another labelled “lemon-color”.
We have rainbow colors of such vast variety…. like us students!! We’re all different, and it’s OK!! It doesn’t have to be “approved colors” already represented in the spectrum.
And of course, art class is not finished until we clean up, and pack up our tools nicely, and get ready for the next class. Just hoping no one spilled their water on the floor.
Japanese
Students looking ready to start learning with a peace sign, is good to go!!!
“Feet on floor, backs straight, knuckles between my back and front”
“Let’s start our Japanese class!!”
It’s like a chant of rhyming phrases in English. In Japanese, more emphasis is placed on the rhythm.
The story they’re reading now is “Omusubi-Kororin”. They enjoy reading it, chanting in good, metered rhythm. This unit is extremely important as an introduction of poems like Haiku, and Tanka where the number of syllables becomes important, in the five-seven-five meter.
Later on, students were shown pictures of traditional Japanese stories, and they had to try producing an rhythmic explanation in the seven-five meter. It’s not a simple task for the average 1st grader, but they worked quite smoothly. They really seemed to enjoy this unit, and practiced a lot in previous classes.
So this is the last day of the 1st semester, when all students were tasked to clean together. I hope everyone remembered to take their homework home!!
Students, take care!! Be careful, and enjoy a fine summer holiday!!
I hope to see you all back at school next semester!!!