The Railroad Museum Field Trip

Today's trip to The Railroad Museum in Saitama was a great learning experience for second grade!  We were able to inquire into how trains and migration are connected by viewing and experiencing many different types of trains that have evolved over time and by asking questions to the helpful guides.  The students learned many facts about the different types of trains and now I hope we can synthesize that knowledge into an understanding about how migration has changed because of the changing technology! Take a look at some photos from the day...

New reading book

JAL (Japanese as an Additional Language) students got a new Reading book this week!
It was so nice to see that they were really excited about getting a new book.
Now it is a blue book and it is about school.
Please listen to them at home while they are doing reading homework.

This week, Grade 2 students also did Hiragana check test.
Some students were forgetting some Hiragana they occasionally use.
We will keep practicing after Friday Kanji/word test.

Cultural Identity and Math Inquiry

During our migration inquiry the students have been thinking about how people maintain their cultural identity, even when they go to new places with different people, ideas, and customs.  We read "The Name Jar" where the main character, Unhei, migrated from Korea to America.  She had a Korea name stamp from her Grandma to help her remember who she is and where she came from.  We also read the story "The Lotus Seed" about a Vietnamese woman who kept a lotus seed in remembrance of the previous Emperor.  After migrating and having grandchildren she passed on her memories of her homeland to her grandchildren through stories of the lotus seed and flower.

The students were presented with the question, "Tomorrow you are leaving to live in Antarctica for ten years.  What one object would you bring with you to help remind of your culture, country and family and cheer you up when you get sad?  Here are the pictures of the students presenting their objects.

The students have also been working on math inquiries into measurement and many students are really excited to be working on measurement board games.  So much in fact, when it was lunch time today most people just kept on working on their projects!  Every one also was presented with the challenge to make a fence for their desk.  They could only take one trip (a few of them two) to the fence store to get the right amount of fence for three sides of their desk.  It turned out to be a challenging problem for most students since they had to apply critical thinking skills to their prior knowledge of measurement and addition!