Last Saturday, 11th February, saw the 15th New Year Kids Museum event held at the Ushigome Tansu Centre. We were proud to be able to support the event through placing two advertisements in the event pamphlet, one for englishpool and one for The Three Little Pigs.

  This annual event is organised by Shinjuku Kodomo Gekijo, and as well as featuring performances from the various circles under the Shinjuku Kodomo Gekijo umbrella (including Kobuta wadaiko, The Diamond Lilies gospel group) there are also performances from other organisations run for children in Shinjuku-ku (including Unicycle Shinjuku Azalea, Yuttarino and Shinjuku Junior Leaders.)

  I am always surprised at the high quality of the performances and the professionalism of the event, and this year was no exception. It really is amazing what can be achieved by people volunteering their time and energy.

 P.S. Next year I'll try and write this kind of post before the event...to encourage you to attend, like.

新学期に向けて新しく教室アシスタントを募集します。

子どもクラスで働いてくださる日本人アシスタントを探しています。

仕事内容は主にレッスンのアシストですが、簡単な事務、電話対応もしていただきます。

児童英語教師になる勉強をしている方、経験者は優遇します。

日常会話程度の英語力必須。

子ども好きの方、よろしくお願いします。

勤務地：東京都新宿区新宿7-3-36-102　イングリッシュプール

勤務時間：火～金　１５：００～１８：００　　
　　　　　　　土　　　午前中
　　　　　　　（週１～３日）　　　　　

勤務期間：長期

雇用形態：パート・アルバイト

交通費：なし　（近所の方お願いします^^）

時給：￥１０００

We were asked by my local Chokai Association (think parish council) if we could provide a one point lesson for their upcoming newsletter.

Naturally we said 'yes'; so after a bit of brain scratching we came up with the theme of directions, as it's probably the most common reason for foreign visitors and the Japanese population to interact.

I also got to have myself featured as a local business, cue mug shot:

The owner of Andy's Country Farm in Wakamatsucho, who provides the flower displays for The Three Little Pigs was also featured. So all in all not a bad bit of free publicity.

Thank you, Toyama 1 Chome.

P.S. Actually it's not the first time for them to be featured, check out last summer's edition on our facebook page.

Every year, in our Sprouts classes, we have a theme of autumn/fall colours. We ask the children and mothers to bring in any interesting leaves they may find. We then arrange look at and talk about the leaves, noting colour, shape and anything else that may be of interest.

As well as leaves, we also receive other autumn items such as chestnuts, acorns and pine cones. All create a great theme that is fun to talk about.

Just in case any of the children and mother pairs forget to bring in any leaves, I also take a walk through Toyama Park collecting various items. The above picture shows my haul of autumn goodies, including various leaves, pine cones types and some very spherical acorns.

Something else we also do is to select a few of the most interesting leaves, arrange them in a laminate pouch and then feed the pouch through the laminating machine. This encases the leaves in plastic as shown below. The children can then take the pouch home as a reminder.

(Beware: laminating leaves is probably not recommended by the laminating machine manufacturer!!)