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I have a pen, I have a pineapple ...
Thank you Pikotaro for making my students progress that little bit easier! In the Elementary B class (小学生B) we are currently learning/reviewing "I have ...", "He/she has ...", "They have ..." etc.
Thankfully Pikotaro's efforts from 2016!! (yes really) are still paying dividends...all the students can recite the whole routine even though they would have been only 4 or 5 years old!
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Pikotaro's video is below.
BONUS: It's also one of the answers to this quiz from 2017, Name Five Tropical Fruits Starting with 'P'
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Where is Mother?
In our Elementary A classes (小学生A) we have just started learning about rooms in the house. I found this very useful activity to practice family members and room names. Enjoy!
liveworksheets.com
Leonardo da Vinci
Used this video in our Junior High class (中学生クラス) tonight. I'd prepared a theme based around Leonardo da Vinci, with the students required to answer and make questions about the Mona Lisa, watch and listen to this video and answer questions related to it. Such as 'Where was he from?' 'What jobs titles did he have?' 'What did he invent?' etc.
A lot of fun, and a chance for them to use English without opening a textbook!
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Spiderman & the Avengers
Some new books for our library. These four titles from the ever popular Pearson English Kids Readers (formerly Penguin Kids) series are sure to be a hit with our students.
The titles are:
Happy reading!
Happy Families!
As part of our family them in the Elementary A class (小学生A) we asked the children to draw their families and make a short presentation:
"This is my mother, this is my father, this is my big brother and this is me."
I was so impressed by this drawing that I thought I'd share it with you.
Ozobot helps with bingo
We had a lot of fun using Ozobot (オゾボット) to help with games of bingo in our Elementary A (小学生A) classes.
The children had been learning vocabulary linked to the theme of family, as part of Unit 3 of their Explore Our World books, and I saw an opportunity to introduce Ozobot, with its line following and color code reading abilities, to help us complete the bingo activity.
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世界最大のタコは何センチですか？
Today in our Elementary A class (小学生A) one of the children, keen to show his knowledge, came out with this question, "世界最大のタコは何センチですか？"
Rather than telling him to be quiet, I decided to use his outburst of Japanese and turn it into useful English. So I got him to ask again, this time in English, "How big is the biggest octopus in the world?"
The answer is 900cm (30ft)!!!
You learn something new everyday!
The frog on the rock
Last week in our elementary A classes (小学生クラスA) the children completed unit 2 of the Explore Our World text by cutting, glueing, drawing and coloring these wonderful collages. As well as learning a whole bunch of nature vocabulary such as river, tree, frog, rock, mountain, flower, bush, grass etc they also learned how to describe the location of the items, for exmaple , "A rock is in the river", "The butterfly is on the flower" and "The frog is on the rock".
They all did really well, and I'm very proud of them. If you want to see all their pictures, you can find them over on the englishpool gallery page: https://www.englishpool.net/gallery
As seen in JAF Mate
Well done to a keen eyed mother who noticed something of interest in this month's JAF Mate (ジャフメイト) a monthly magazine from JAF (Japan Automobile Federation).
On page 29, as part of a safe driving quiz, the view from the driver's seat clearly shows englishpool! Well almost, as we are hidden behind various bits of street furniture!
Thanks to Y's mum, for sharing the magazine with us!
And safe driving everybody!
Pie Book?
No not a book of pies, but a book of Pi (π) the mathematical constant.
As brought in to class by one of our Junior High School students. The book is absolutely bonkers, all in contains are the digits of Pi computed to one million decimal places!
Just rows and rows of numbers. It's also very hard on the eyes!
Thank you T, for sharing!
More...
Penfriends in Italy
As part of the Cambridge Assessment Penfriends programme we recently swapped cards with Kids&Us in Latina, Italy.
This was the first time our youngest elementary class (小学生A) had written cards, and I was a little worried as to whether they could complete the task. I needn't have worried because they really gave it their best, they were super excited to be communicating with children in another country and full of ideas of what they wanted to include. So much so, that I had to limit what they wrote to keep within time and ability constraints!
The letters we received from Kids&Us were also well written and beautifully composed!
Well done all! And as always a big thank you to Cambridge Assessment for making these magical moments happen.
English Adventures with Cambridge
Something exciting from Cambridge Assesment English. They have created their own world on the ever popular Minecraft? (Or マイクラ in Japanese.) It's called English Adventures with Cambridge and runs on the Education Edition of Minecraft, so you'll need a Microsoft 365 licence to play, but the actual game is free to play.
I had a quick look around the game yesterday and aside from being visually stunning, that's the library in the screenshot, there seem to be various challenges the students have to complete using their English skills. The big plus for children who don't yet read English, is that the various characters they interact with also have audio....so the frustration of not being able to read is alleviated.
My first impressions are that this is something to fill the space left by the departure Mingoville and Moshi Monsters.I'm looking forward to using it (sparingly) in my classes.
Learning English while playing Minecraft. well it's a winner!
追悼 エリック・カール
イングリッシュプールでも教材として、本当にお世話になっている絵本達。
【THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR】【Brown Bear,Brown Bear,What Do You See?】etc...
の作者であるエリック・カールさんが亡くなりました。
世界各国で世代を超えて親しまれる作品を生み出した素晴らしい作家です。
私が子供の頃、【はらぺこあおむし】の穴のあいたページが衝撃的で、ほかの絵本とは違う何か特別な存在だったことを覚えています。
つい先日、立川にある美術館PLAY！MUSEUMで『エリック・カール あそぶための本』という展示を観てきたところでした。
彼の作品は、これからもずっと子供たちに読み継がれていくことでしょう。
感謝と愛を込めて。
Reds and Blues
New colours for the englishpool leaflet. I wanted to make it a bit more eye catching!
What do you think?
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