On Friday, we were very lucky to have a special visitor in St. Clare's Class. Kyoko came to visit us from the Japan Foundation and we had a wonderful morning together!
Kyoko is from Japan and teaches Japanese to children and adults in London. We were very fortunate that she could come and help us to learn some Japanese too!
We began the morning by learning how to greet one another in Japanese and how to introduce ourselves. We learned how to say 'hello', 'good morning', 'thank you', 'my name is...', 'I am 9/10 years old' and 'it's nice to meet you'. Kyoko also taught us the importance of bowing and how to bow appropriately. Before the end of this session, we were able to have a short conversation with a partner and sing a song to the tune of 'Row Row Row Your Boat' with all of the new phrases we had learned.
Excitingly, Kyoko told us that a very special Japanese festival is coming up soon, on 7th July. She told us the story of Tanabata (see the video below):
It's a beautiful story and it was very interesting to hear how Tanabata is celebrated in Japan. Kyoko told us that on this day, people write their wishes on colourful strips of paper called 'tanzaku'.
Source: thejapanguy
Source: nihonsun
She kindly brought some along for us, so that we could write some wishes of our own! We wrote our wishes in English, but Kyoko helped us to write some of the key words in Japanese too. Once we had written and decorated our wishes on the tanzaku, we had a moment of quiet reflection as we placed them onto the branches of our special 'tree'.
After play, we learned how to say and write numbers in Japanese, using the kanji characters. We loved reciting the numbers and learning the actions to go with them! Once we had a good understanding of the numbers, Kyoko thought we were ready to learn how to write dates. We were fascinated to learn how the months are written in kanji and we were all trying to say our birthday dates at lunchtime and in the afternoon!
We learned more greetings too and Kyoko helped us to say 'My favourite thing is...' and worked with each of us, one at a time, to tell us how to say our favourite things! We learned how to say 'skateboarding', 'art', 'science', 'football' and all sorts of other hobbies in Japanese!
What a wonderful opportunity- arigato gozaimasu, Kyoko!
This
week has been a strange one at St. Anthony's. On Wednesday night, tiny
doors appeared around the school out of nowhere and nobody could explain
why! A leading detective was onto the case straightaway, but he needed
your help in answering these questions: Who are these visitors? Where
did they come from? Why are they here?
After
reading a letter from Detective Petitie, you all set out to solve the
mysteries, and luckily you also wrote some excellent pieces of writing
explaining what had happened. You were a big help to him in finding
out what was going on.
We
have been very impressed by your super pieces of work, but the mystery
remains unsolved as of yet. What do YOU think goes on behind those tiny
doors?
Here
are some of the highlights of your fantastic writing, remember to click
on the pictures to make them larger and easier to read:
Year 1
Jonas, Year 1
Annabelle, Year 1
Amarachi, Year 1
Siena, Year 1
Aine and Misty, Year 3
Klara, Year 4
Alex, Year 5
Erhun, Year 5
Emily, Year 4
Bella and Mia, Year 5
Natalia, Year 6
Laudine, Reception
Jasper, Reception
We'll
add some more fabulous Tiny Door writing next week, when we receive
some more submissions! Check out our new display board between the Year 2
classrooms too, to see this work in real life, plus lots more!
This week, your homework challenge is to write a 500 word short story for a competition. If your story is chosen as one of the winners, it will be included in a brand new professionally staged show performed at the Polka Theatre! Wow!
You need to bring the photos to life by writing a story inspired by them.
Please bring your story into school before Tuesday- do not send your entry off to the address on the website. We will check them and send them all off together.
The rules to follow:
The story cannot be longer than 500 words.
You must type or neatly handwrite your story. If the judges can't read it, they can't judge it!
The story must be inspired by the photographs.
On the front page of your story please write the title of your story,
plus your full name, school, year group and age. Please provide the contact
details (address, phone number and email) of an adult we can contact if
you are one of the shortlisted stories - either a teacher or family
member.
It must be your own, original work.
Top Tips!
Make sure your story has a clear beginning, middle and end.
Use some exciting language- amazing adjectives, adverbs and connectives.
As you only have 500 words, keep the story simple and don't have too many characters.
Congratulations to Abel, who found out last week that his 500 word story has been put through to the next round of the BBC 500 Word Story competition!
Over 118,000 children entered the competition and Abel's story has been picked - with just 3,500 others, to go through to the next stage of the competition. Very well done Abel!
If anyone else has heard that their story has gone through to round 2, let me know!
