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Published: October 26th 2006
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3rd Graders
These are the third graders playing Red Light, Green Light that Kelli and I taught. As part of the foreign exchange program the elementary schools ask for exchange students to come and teach the children about their country. This semester there were two schools that asked for foreign students to come twice to their school. I chose to go to the school that wanted two people per classroom for a total of eight people. We needed to think of a song and game that we could teach the children (3rd graders). My partner, Kelli, and I decided to teach the children “I’m a Little Tea Pot” and “Red Light, Green Light”. We went to the school twice. The first time we told the children about ourselves and answered the questions that they had prepared for us. We also taught them the song. We did not have sheet music for them so Kelli and I wrote out the lyrics using Katakana. It is one of the writing systems in Japanese used mainly for writing out foreign words by how they sound. They got the words alright, but the melody was tricky for them. The teacher brought over the keyboard and I had to play it for the first time ever on the piano. I did not have
Sapporo Beer Factory
Sayaka, Mama and I at the Sapporo Beer Factory. any music it was quite the experience. I did manage to figure it out and I now know how to play “I’m a little Teapot” on the piano without music. After that day I found sheet music for it and the main person in charge of the exchange program faxed it over to them. The next week when we went back for our second visit the kids sang it for us. It sounded wonderful and was adorable. Next they taught Kelli and I a song with actions. The actions are a lot of fun, and can be quite tricky. If any of you remember doing the games as a child where you would get a partner and clap hands with each other while saying a rhyme; that is essentially what the actions to this song are. As the song goes on the actions get faster and faster. I can try and teach it to you all when I get back if anyone would like to learn it. After that we taught the children how to play Red Light, Green Light. They all knew how to play because apparently they have a similar game in Japanese using some popular children’s character.
Salmon
A picture of the Salmon at the outdoor Salmon aquarium. We had a blast. I would definitely go back if we were able to. When we got done the children gave us a book (made out of construction paper) with little thank you cards in it that they had written in Japanese. I love it!
On Sep. 22 we had the Hi-C welcome party. Hi-C is the international club of Hokusei. They took us to Karaoke and we had tons of food. I didn’t sing but I had fun watching others sing. There was a total of about 40 people there. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards Kelli and I decided to look around Odori and see what was all there. We discovered a great souvenir shop. I bought a Hello Kitty charm. Hello Kitty is wearing an ear of corn. It’s really cute. They only sell them in Hokkaido, since Hokkaido is famous for their corn in Japan.
On Sep. 23 Mama, Sayaka, and I went to the new Sapporo Beer Factory. It was really neat to see how they bottle, can, label and box beer. At the end of it you get to try Sapporo Beer. It was pretty good. The best part is
The Lake
This was the beautiful lake that we went to see after the salmon aquarium. the whole thing is free. Next we went to the Chitose Salmon Aquarium, and got to see the salmon coming back home. It’s all outdoors and was beautiful. Finally we went to a big lake. I don’t know the name of it but the sun was starting to set, making the reflection off of the lake gorgeous.
On Sep. 24 Mama, Papa, Sayaka, and I went to Cape Kiowa. Once there we hiked up to the top of the peak. It was a very narrow path that was fun meeting people on. Haha. It was a lot of fun and very tiring. It also happened to be very windy that day as you’ll see in the pictures. From the peak you can look at a metal map that tells you which way Korea, China and Russia are from that point. There are also rock formations when you look down from the cape that look like Japan does on a map, (if you look at Japan upside down?). It’s quite a site. I loved taking pictures out there. After we left there we went to another spot by the ocean and I took several more pictures. We also had
Farmland
Farmland on our way to Cape Kiowa. homemade ice cream that was delicious.
Hope you are all enjoying my posts. I hope to get my photo album updated soon, so that when you click on the link there will be new pictures for you all to look at.
Joy's Japan Photos (Please ask me for the password if you don't know it. Thanks)
Best Wishes Everyone
Joy
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Amanda Pierce
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Sounds like you're having a great time! I want some of that ice cream!