A Very Special Visitor!

 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!

Our Visit to the Embassy!

Source: wikipedia

On Thursday, we had the honour of visiting the Embassy of Japan in London's Piccadilly.

We had a wonderful afternoon learning about Japan and meeting some of the members of staff from the Embassy.

Firstly, we looked at the manga exhibition on display at the Embassy, as we will be beginning our own manga projects soon.

Source: http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/en/event/manga/2014/manga_jiman_14.html

 

Then we were taken through to the spectacular ballroom, where we met Miss Soni. Miss Soni taught us lots of interesting facts about Japan.

After the presentation, we split into two groups. Each group took part in two activities: Japanese calligraphy and Yosakoi dance.

The calligraphy class was fascinating and we had to follow very strict rules. It was important to sit with the correct posture and hold the brush in the correct way. We learned a number of Japanese characters, including those for river, mountain and life.

Our teacher from the Embassy was very impressed by our efforts and said that we were the best behaved class they had had at the Embassy- well done, everyone!

The Yosakoi dance workshop was led by Miss Soni, who had performed in the Japanese national Yosakoi finals with her team in Japan.

We each wore a special 'happi' coat and held two 'naruko' (wooden clappers).

It was great fun to learn all of the moves and poses! It certainly helped us to learn our Japanese numbers, too!

Thames Explorer Workshop!

On Wednesday, Kate from the Thames Explorer Trust came to visit us at school. All of the children in Year 5 took part in a workshop, learning all about the Port of London.

It gave us a chance to show off what we already know about the River Thames and to learn lots of fascinating new information. We learned about shipping routes around the globe and how we import and export using the River Thames.

Kate brought along some HUGE maps for us to explore in the hall.

We also performed in some drama challenges and explored the history of the Thames from the Roman period, through its Victorian history, the closure of the Docks through to modern day London.

An Eggs-tremely Eggs-iting Day!

What a peculiar day! This morning, when we arrived at school, we had received a special URGENT letter from the Government Department for Unusual Creature Knowledge (D.U.C.K.). A Professor F. E. Athery had written to us asking for our help:

These letters appeared, along with some rather unusual feathers, in every classroom and in the office. We also found multi-coloured feathers all around the school, even on the Welcome to St. Anthony's sign!

But, perhaps strangest of all, there were four enormous mysterious eggs in the hall! Two had hatched, but there was no sign of the creatures that had been inside them.

We spent the day investigating and coming up with some fantastic theories about what the creatures might look like, why they had chosen our school to hatch and where they might have gone now!

Everyone in the school, from Nursery to Year 6 (and even some of the adults!) did some writing about the eggs or the mysterious feathered creatures. Some children thought they were dragon eggs, some thought they had arrived from space and some thought they might be reptile-bird crosses! Year 5 suggested that the eggs might have arrived in the hall through the sky light, which was immediately above where they were found. Some children thought they might have come from our Escher Lego picture, or that they had chosen to hatch next to our world map so that they could find their way home.

We will add lots of photos of the eggs-iting day later this week and we will choose some of the best pieces of writing to share on the blog and display on our 'Inspiring Writing' board outside the hall, between the Year 2 classrooms.

Here are a few marvellous pieces to capture your interest...

 By Charley, Year 1

 By Estelle, Reception

By Harry O., Reception

Trench Warfare- The Battle of the Somme

Source: Royal Irish Rifles

On Friday after play, when we returned to our classroom, it had turned into the Western Front at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

The platoon of St. Clare were met by Field Marshall Parrott and Lieutenant Cook who gave strict orders for their expectations of bravery and conduct on the battle field. Following a uniform inspection and orders for the men to face death as a glorious sacrifice for King and country, we entered the trenches. It was dark on the Western Front and the sounds of heavy artillery boomed around us. We had to crawl through the tunnels and trenches to keep our heads below the parapet, to avoid the enemy sniper fire.

Following a period of quiet reflection in the trenches and time for the men to write letters home, we heard the barrage end and knew it was time for us to go over the top.

Sadly, this was not the battle to end the war, as we had initially believed and the enemy had known we were coming. The barrage had not been as successful as we had thought and we suffered heavy casualties.

After participating in the Battle of the Somme for ourselves, we took some time to look at some real footage from the battle and learned about the tactics and errors of the Allied Forces. We compared the trenches and artillery of the Allies and Central Powers. We were lucky to have Abel from Year 6 to help Mrs Parrott to teach about the Battle of the Somme, as he is a real military expert!

Source: Honourable Artillery Company

 

On Friday afternoon, we were very fortunate to have a talk from Mr. Conlon, a real soldier! He told us about life in the modern army and about the importance of peace. He shared with us information about what his regiment did in World War One and showed us some photographs of his own army experiences.

A Visit from Monsieur Davi

This half term we have been enjoying learning about Togo, so we were absolutely delighted when we were able to welcome a special Togolese visitor to our classroom. Monsieur Davi was a fantastic guest, who taught us lots about life in Togo and about the many languages spoken there. As a linguist and former teacher, he was able to share lots of knowledge about Africa with us.

Monsieur Davi also brought some Togolese foods to show us and even set us the challenge of designing some posters to advertise Togolese food such as cassava, cocoa beans, coffee beans, palm nuts, okra and corn.

He was very impressed by the children's knowledge and interest in Togo. Thank you for coming to visit us, Mr. Davi!

Our Adventure!

Yesterday, we went on a fantastic adventure! We went to Central London to step into the world of 'Kaspar Prince of Cats'.

First, on our arrival in Central London, we walked around Covent Garden Market. We imagined Johnny walking through the market with Countess Kandinsky and looked for clues about the original use of the market:

Next, we arrived at the spectacular Royal Opera House. We were met by David who kindly looked after us for the morning.

We were incredibly lucky to be shown around behind the scenes at the Royal Opera House. We saw the technical areas on the side of the stage, which was a huge space with sets and scenery ready to go on stage for the upcoming performance of an opera called 'La Traviata'.
We were even greeted by one of the opera singers, in full costume!

Following that, we went upstairs and had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch part of a class in which the men of the ballet company were rehearsing. We were all astonished by the dancing we saw and were particularly impressed by their wonderful pirouetting. The class was held in a beautiful light room, with a sprung dance floor and a pianist was playing the music for them. David told us about the incredible commitment and hard work that goes into becoming a world class dancer and we were able to ask him lots of questions. We saw dancers from countries all around the world, including the world famous Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta! Wow!

After that wonderful experience, we were able to peek into the studios of the costume department, where they were hard at work making some of the beautiful costumes for the ballet dancers and opera singers.

Next, we walked through some of the areas that guests to the Royal Opera House would visit. We arrived at the famous Floral Hall. David told us that the Floral Hall had that name because it used to house the Covent Garden flower market, where Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist met the Artful Dodger!

We visited The Crush Room next to the auditorium and admired the beautiful chandeliers and fancy decoration. We imagined Countess Kandinsky in this very grand room and wondered whether her home might have had similar decoration!

During a break in the day's rehearsals, David was able to quickly take us into the auditorium to sit in the best seats in the house! This was where Countess Kandinsky found a seat for Johnny to watch her sing in 'The Magic Flute'.
We were able to see the team changing the sets on the stage and we saw where the Queen sat when she recently attended the opera!

After saying goodbye and thank you to David, we were off to the next stage of our adventure! We walked to Victoria Embankment Gardens, where Johnny used to take Kaspar for his daily walks.

Next, we went to the very smart restaurant 'Simpsons on the Strand' and sat in a lovely room upstairs, while we waited to meet our next guide, Dustin.

Dustin arrived and told us about the Savoy's relationship with Kaspar. He told us about the real Kaspar the cat, who had inspired Michael Morpurgo's story. We found out that Kaspar was a cat who lived in the Savoy, then a statue was crafted to remember him, over 100 years ago. Today, if 13 people come to eat at the Savoy, Kaspar joins them as the 14th guest. The statue is brought to the table and a napkin is wrapped around him, then he is served the same food as all of the other guests!

Finally, we split into groups of 10 and Dustin took us into the Savoy! We saw the marvellous front entrance, met a very kind doorman and then entered the beautiful front hall.

The front hall was very beautiful. Dustin told us that it has not changed much in the last 100 years, so would have looked similar when Johnny was working there!

We were all delighted to meet Kaspar! We could look at the statue, but we could not touch him because he is over 100 years old and made from one piece of wood!

What a wonderful day! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did! What was your highlight of the day?