Reuniting After Summer Break

Reuniting After Summer Break

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Welcome back to second term!

We have been back at school for one whole week now! Our teachers have been so happy to see some familiar faces again at the kindergarten! Some kids have gotten taller, some kids have gotten faster at getting ready in the morning/afternoon, and some kids have gotten new haircuts!

Jupiters have been working on how to hang their uniforms on their personal hangers.

Teachers have also made a lot of changes for the new semester. First, our school also has a new sanitizer station, included with a thermometer to measure everyone’s temperature on their wrist. Second, we have also asked students to make sure they stay home even if they feel only a little under the weather. None of our students have gotten infected up until now, and we intend on keeping it that way while the virus continues to spread.

  • Our new sanitizer / thermometer station
  • Socially distancing during our Opening Ceremony

After welcoming everyone back to the kindergarten, we took some time in our individual English classes to talk about what everyone did over summer break. Everyone brought photo collages and hand-drawn pictures to show their friends what they were up to.

L-R: Jupiters, Saturns, and Mercuries showing off their summer memories

From second semester, many programs are added to our normal daily structure at ILH. Jupiters will be included in Show & Tell and also will be given the same Leader Board responsibilities as their upperclassmen. Project BOB will also be added from the middle of September to help supplement everyone’s daily English learning.

  • reading Curious George phonics books in Mercury class
  • Saturn class reviewing Project BOB Books

Besides additional English, everyone will be busy getting ready for our various fall and winter events. It may turn into a busy time, but with a lot of support from our teachers, it will be a fun, fast, exciting couple of months!

Stay tuned for more updates this fall as things get started!

Emergency Drills

Emergency Drills

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Every month, we practice emergency drills at International Language House to prepare us for any potential natural disasters that may occur during the school day.

Types of emergencies we have drills for are fires, earthquakes, and intruder drills. Everyone acts out the situation as if it were really happening. We allow the kids to feel fear or surprise in the moment since they may feel the same way during an actual disaster, but also encourage them to use courage despite what they may be feeling.

After going through with the simulation, we make sure every one knows the incident is over and have a talk with everyone. Teachers make comments about what went well and what we need to work on for future drills with the kids. We also review some important steps to emergency reactions:

No running!

No screaming or panicking!

Don’t go back inside the school after you’ve left!

If it’s a fire, don’t breathe in the smoke. If it’s an earthquake, put on your shoes and cover your head!

Once we review the rules, we are ready to return to our normal school day.

Every year in September, we conduct a simulation of a large earthquake similar to Kobe 1995 or Fukushima in 2011.

  • Kobe 1995 earthquake
  • Fukushima 2011 earthquake/tsunami

On this day, we display a video of what those earthquakes looked like, talk about it, and hold a simulation.

When it’s time to go home, all parents must come to pick up their kids on foot. This is because if an actually big earthquake comes, the roads and train tracks will not be safe enough to ride on.

waiting to get picked up after our large earthquake drill

The more we practice for an emergency, the more prepared we will be in the future. Here’s to everyone’s safety moving forward!

Summer Camp

Summer Camp

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At ILH, we are doing summer camp in the kindergarten! It’s been fun spending time together despite the hot weather.

Every week of summer camp has its own theme.

Last week, Timo teacher led a sports themed program.

basketball day

This week, Thom teacher has been leading a science-themed program.

building sports cars

After Obon, our dispatch teachers will guest-lead our culture week, and the last week of summer camp will be led by Janna teacher, with the theme of movies!

Our normal daily schedule at summer camp starts with some English time and craft, followed by lunch and pool time.

After we get out of the pool, we do another activity and end the day with some ice cream and movie time.

Many kids from our school attend, but we also have had several graduate kids and / or community kids join us as well. Anyone is welcome!

Are you interested in joining summer camp next year? We will answer any questions you have about our school, summer camp, etc. through email, phone, and in person. Check out our Contact Us page for more information.

Introducing…

Introducing…

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This academic year, we have been teaching with a new system in place.

The new system, called STAR, mixes English with special topics to help immerse our students into the language more while doing different activities.

We have added three new special classes:

Timo Teacher is in charge of our music class,

Janna Teacher is in charge of our Theatre class,

And Thom Teacher is in charge of our science class!

Our English teachers teach their special class to a different grade three days a week.

Here are a few words from our teachers about how the past few weeks have been with our new program in place.

Timo Teacher:

“Timoโ€™s STAR class is focused on teaching rhythm through 3 different approaches: Drumming, dancing, and singing.

The Mercury class [learns] rhythm skills [with] drums and other percussion instruments while the Jupiter and Saturn classes [do mainly] singing and dancing.”

*All of the music that we use in the class is either an ILH original songs created by TILT, or a monthly kindergarten song.*

Thom Teacher:

“So far in Science class we have studied anatomy, the senses, and this month we are studying water.

Through experimentation, I hope that [the kids’] motivation to speak English will be sparked by a natural curiosity [in science].”

Janna Teacher:

“We have been using Phonics as a way to practice good pronunciation and voice projection while acting in Theatre class.

My goal is to have students confidently practicing phrases that are used daily at ILH! We have also been exploring our creativity and imagination!

After teaching STAR class, our teachers return to our regular classes and teach normal english after that.

So far, it’s been a lot of fun! We are happy when our kids go home and practice what they’ve learned with us even at home.

>>>Check out our Instagram page for more daily life photos<<<

Book Review: It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny

Book Review: It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny

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This book we recently did for story time with Mercury class, although it was a simple enough story for all three age levels to enjoy.

P. J. Funnybunny is tired of being a bunny. So he decides to travel around and live like a bunch of different animals to fit in somewhere else. He ends up realizing he is the happiest being himself–a bunny!

This book is great for teaching different animal names in English in a fun way. It’s also a cute way to address self-love and accepting what makes you unique!

Many people, not just kids, try to be someone else to see if they will be more comfortable that way. After seeing how different people live, it becomes easier to know who you want to be.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Our overall rating is 5 stars!

Do you have any book recommendations? Leave a comment!

New Kids, New Feelings

New Kids, New Feelings

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What does your child feel when they’re in a new place?

They may feel:

  • scared
  • homesick
  • uncomfortable
  • tired
  • lonely
  • overwhelmed

What do we do at ILH to help?

We provide:

  • friendly environment
  • fun games and new toys
  • modeling proper behavior
  • new friends
  • explanation in both languages
  • practice & patience

We make it a priority to make every day fun, safe, and full of opportunities to grow!

This year’s Jupiter class has adjusted relatively quickly to being at our kindergarten during the month of April.

We have seen crying faces, anxious faces, confused faces, stubborn faces, and tired faces. But recently, we have seen a LOT more happy faces!

Our Saturn and Mercury classes have been very willing to help their new friends get used to life here.

Watching everyone become comfortable here so quickly has been a joy for us teachers to see!

Here’s to a new school year!

>>>Check out our Instagram page for more daily life photos<<<

Missing the Mercuries?

Missing the Mercuries?

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Tomorrow we welcome in our current ILH students for our Moving-Up Ceremony. How exciting to be in the next grade!

Wednesday will be our first gathering of the new Jupiter class. There will be a lot of new faces (maybe some crying ones) to get to know!

As we are thinking of all this change in our first week back, it’s easy to miss last year’s Mercury class as they move on to elementary school.

Here is a video of this past year’s Mercury class during their last field trip with ILH.

For upcoming Mercuries, this may be what your class experiences, too! Look forward to it! ๐Ÿ™‚

Teaching Money and Consequences

Teaching Money and Consequences

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Another successful round of BOB Bucks Auctions this year!

Every year, towards the end of our third term, our teachers introduce our BOB Buck program.

Our mascot, BOB, is the face of our behavior currency for the last few weeks of school.

What do we mean by “behavior currency?”

Any selfless actions, acts of responsibility, and any other good deeds done by our students, are rewarded with BOB Bucks from our teachers. In order to correct bad habits or behaviors before the end of the school year, BOB Bucks are also taken away.

On auction day, the kids with the most money are able to buy the most expensive toys and also go shopping with the rest afterwards.

This program is very popular for the following reasons:

  • Kids have a better understanding of how their actions and consequences are connected.
  • The concept of money is introduced and kids learn how to count and spend wisely.

Here is some footage from our last auction of the year today!

Book Review: My New Normal

Book Review: My New Normal

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Welcome to our new series: book reviews from our teachers at ILH!

This book we recently ordered online after hearing about it on the American news.

A 7-year old girl from Michigan, U. S. A. named Mackenzie wrote this book. She struggled with being a child living through the COVID-19 outbreak, and wanted to share her experience to other kids who may also have a tough time adapting to daily life.

We read this book to our students this week and it was easy for them to understand the message of the book. Some parts of the story only applied to the current American school system, so it wasn’t completely relatable. But having a book written by a kid was amazing to share with our students!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Our overall rating is 3.5 stars!

Do you have any book recommendations? Leave a comment!

Ogre, Ogre, Go Away!

Ogre, Ogre, Go Away!

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Wahhhhhh!!

That was the sound of our school yesterday as we stepped outside and drove some scary oni away from our school!

In Japanese, we have a song about throwing beans at the oni, but we made an English version of it:

Ogre go away

Bring me luck today

clickety-clack, clickety-clack

Beans will keep us safe

We will all enjoy it when

The demon sneaks away

Here’s a video of our bean throwing event. The blue and red oni were so scary and made some of us cry, but we did our best to fight them anyway! Thank goodness we told the oni “go away!” and said “้ฌผใฏๅค–๏ผ็ฆใฏๅ†…๏ผ”

It’s good to allow your child to feel feelings of fear and sadness within a safe space. Hopefully everyone was able to learn and grow from their experience. Maybe next year we will all be stronger!