ビーンストークでは、冬休み期間に内部生のみ対象のウインタースクールを実施しました。
インターナショナルプリスクール生さんのみが参加される期間は、「日本の文化を英語で伝える」事を目標とし、年末年始の行事、風習を学びました。真の国際人となる為には、まず自分の国の事をよく知る事が大切です。しかし多くの場合大人になって外国と関わりを持つまでその大切さに気がつかない事がほとんどです。そんな事がないように、私どもでは、日本独自の文化、古来からの風習を特に大切にしております。子供達も大喜びで、お餅つきや冬至でのカボチャ金時作り、自分の名前入り凧制作などに興じていました。

We’ve just finished with this year’s special Winter School session here at Beanstalk. Our preschool students learned about Japanese New Year traditions and activities with the goal of being able to talk about Japanese culture in English. To become truly international, it is important for one to know his or her own culture well. Most people, however, don’t realize that until they grow up and have a contact other cultures. We had a number of activities during Winter School meant to help our students enrich their understanding of their own culture, like making mochi, traditional winter pumpkin treats and new year’s kites.

We pounded and pounded on the rice until it became “mochi”, which we filled with sweet bean paste and rolled in soybean flour, a delicious snack!

アフタースクール生が参加された12月終わりのセッションでは、それまでとは逆に「いろいろな国」をテーマに、毎日ひとつの国を取り上げ、特色や国旗を学びお料理をいただきました。今年はオリンピックやワールドカップなど国をあげて参加するイベントが多いので、通常よりもたくさんの国名を耳にする機会も多くなります。そんな折りに自分の知っている国があるとお子様の外国への興味がより広がるものと信じております。

In our final December sessions for after school students, we took up the theme of “Countries of the World,” learning about the unique flags and cuisines of a number of nations. There will be a number of international events this year, including the Olympics and the World Cup. We hope this will give our students the chance to hear about many new countries and serve as an opportunity to increase their interest in foreign cultures.

And of course, all classes and events were conducted in an All English Environment.


Luckily for us, these gingerbread men didn’t jump out of the oven and run away!

We also studied a lot about many different countries.

ヨガにもチャレンジ。While learning about India, we tried some yoga.

Seven green porridge

Eating rice porridge with greens on January 7th is supposed to protect against ailment in the new year. The custom of eating seven types of vegetables in soup to protect against disease and disaster goes back to ancient China; it appears that it came to Japan during the Heian Period. During the Edo Period, the shogun established the custom of eating “seven green porridge” on the seventh day of the new year, and in time this custom spread to the common people. It has long been believed in Japan that wild greens are effective against all disease, and there was even a tradition of picking and eating wild greens during the new year.

明けましておめでとうございます。今年もよろしくお願い申し上げます。

From Miss Misako, Miss Tomoko, Mr. Aaron, Miss Katherine, Miss Juri, Mr. Ricky, Miss Ebony, Mr. Greg and Miss Asuka

The children practiced playing the drums with Mr. Uichi and Miss Misako for a long time and it certainly showed in their performance. The mothers were also surprised when the students came out in their cute new band uniforms, seen below

There were two drum groups, the Piccolo group, comprised of the younger children, and the Tam Tam group, with some of the older students.

The Piccolo group played Carmen by Bizet and Minuet in G major, while the Tam Tam group played Minuet in G major and the Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky.
For the parents of the younger group, it was a great opportunity to preview the level they can expect their children to achieve next year.

After the drum concert we all got together and enjoyed singing and dancing with songs for each class, as well as songs for everybody to sing together. There were even some special performances by some of the mothers with one performance featuring a keyboard and violin!! The children were so well behaved during the performance and paid wrapped attention.

There was also a performance by all of the mothers, dancing and singing that Japanese Christmas standard, “Last Christmas” by Wham. Mr Aaron wanted to sing “White Christmas” by SPEED, but nobody agreed that this was a true Christmas standard.

Finally all the students joined in a rendition of “We wish you a merry Christmas” which featured students singing, dancing and playing the drums, triangles, castanets, tambourines and hand bells. What a show!!!

Merry Christmas everybody!!!

All the students were divided into two teams, the Orange team and the Purple team. We practiced marching for weeks and made our dramatic entrances when the music started playing.

After the opening ceremony, we did some stretching and got ready for the games.

First was the over/under ball relay race with students and parents, followed by foot races, which were very entertaining. It was very fun to see some of the students run their very first race around the track, and some of the results were surprising.

Other races included the ice cream race where the students had to balance a ball on a small cup, and the caterpillar race where students got inside a cardboard box and had to roll it to the goal while inside the box. You can imagine how difficult it is to steer a box from the outside. Some students came up with some interesting ways to maneuver the box from inside.

After all the games were finished, we had a little dance party while the points were being calculated. Many of the mothers and fathers and grandparents joined and it was a lot of fun. After all the points were added up, it was a tie with both teams having 9 points.

Final Score

Orange team: 9 points

Purple team: 9 points

Finally we had a medal ceremony where everybody received a gold medal.
Everybody had a great time and we are sure that almost everybody was in bed a lot earlier than usual that night.

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Above you can see the Missy Mouse class and the Robby Rabbit class is pictured below. Everybody looked so cute in their outfits, and even some of the parents came in costume, which created a great atmosphere.

Each class spent a lot of time practicing songs and dances for a Halloween performance in front of all the parents and their hard work certainly showed. The mothers and fathers as well as the teachers were all surprised at how well everybody remembered the words and the dance moves. Great work everybody!!

Along the Halloween parade route, we stopped by Kotobukiso, a local senior citizens home, like we do each year, and put on a Halloween performance for the friendly residents.
They really seemed to be excited to see us and really got into the dances and songs.

At the end of the show we presented them with a craft project that all the students worked on for weeks, which is pictured below. Each student made their own leaf which we then put on the tree, and there are also twigs and nuts that we collected from the park and placed at the base of the tree as well as interspersed throughout the leaves.

Happy Halloween to everybody and we look forward to seeing what fantastic costumes everybody has in store for next year.

After washing our hands, the first thing we did was pour some water and mix it in with the dry ingredients. We all had a turn at mixing and kneading the dough until we had a good consistency.

After that we rolled them up into little balls, (well,some of them ended up all balls ) and boiled them. After they cooled down we rolled them in kinako (soybean flour) and placed some anko bean paste on top.

When they were all ready we placed them with some flowers that are traditionally set out for Tsukimi, and proudly posed in front of our new creations. It was soon snack time though and we all enjoyed eating the fruits of our labor.

Missy Mouse class did a great job rolling the dangos into shape.

Deedee class posing with their Otsukimi dango

Hi. My name is Miss Ebony. I’m from Los Angeles, California in the U.S.A.
I like singing, dancing, sewing and reading. I enjoy going to concerts and art museums. I look forward to getting to know all the Beanstalk students and parents.

Hello everyone! My name is Mr. Greg. I’m originally from South Carolina in the U.S, and I just moved to Nagoya from Kyoto. I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of the great kids in our Robby Rabbit class.
If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to contact me. Thanks.

Everybody loves ice cream especially in the summertime, and we decided to make our own ice cream blocks at summer school this year. A perfect relief in the hot Nagoya summer is a home made fresh fruit ice cream block.

We cut up lot of various fruit including bananas, oranges, grapefruits, pineapples and apples. Then we threw them all in the blender to get a nice and smooth consistency, and when that was done we poured them into ice block molds and froze them overnight.

The proof was in the pudding because the next day when we ate them outside in the garden, they were delicious!

Expanding on our tradition of introducing students to new, exciting and enriching experiences such as shuji, music classes and gym instruction, we had a very special guest come to Beanstalk to meet with everybody.
Karate master Hiromitsu Shibata, 2 assistants and a number of his students came to give our students a demonstration and also their first lesson in karate.

The large number of people and the loud shouting of the instructors was a little daunting at first but the children really got into it. They were punching and kicking and shouting and it looked like a lot of fun.

It isn’t all fun and games-(ok, it is all fun ) We also have academic themes and this year’s summer school themes are recycling and maths.

Summer School in Nagoya at Beanstalk is a lot of fun, and we still have 2 more weeks to go. We can’t wait to see what happens next. We certainly hope the weather clears up so we can get more pooltime!

Orihime wove clothes for the gods all day everyday on a special machine called a Tanahata. It is believed that the word Tanabata came from the name of this weaving machine.

Tenkou was worried because his daughter did nothing but weave clothes all day every day. He decided that it would be a good idea if he introduced her to a man, and decided on a young man named Hikoboshi. He was a hardworking caretaker of cows who lived on the other side of the Amanogawa river. Amanogawa is “Milky Way” in English.

When Orihime and Hikoboshi met, they fell in love at first sight and spent all of their time together. They spent so much time together in fact, that they totally neglected their respective duties and as a result the cows became sick and the gods’ clothes became old and worn out.

This made everybody including Tenkou, the god of the sky and Orihime’s father quite mad and he forbade them from meeting each other anymore. Tenkou took his daughter back to the other side of the river and put her to work, but the two lovers were so distraught at being forced apart that they could not work at all. They could do little but stare across the Amanogawa river with a deep sense of longing.

Seeing his daughter so sad distressed Tenkou so he decided to allow Orihime and Hikoboshi to meet, but only one day a year, on July 7th, and only if they worked hard throughout the year. Knowing this, they worked as hard as before so they could meet on that one day each year.

Traditionally, people would wish for clear skies on on July 7th so that the two could meet over the Milky Way. If it rained on that day, the water level in the river would rise too high and the couple would not be able to meet because they could not cross.

People wished this by writing the wish on a piece of paper called a Tanzaku and hanging it on the branches of a bamboo tree. Nowadays people write their own wishes on the paper.

At Beanstalk the children wrote their own wishes in English and hung them on a big bamboo try in the gym. Everybody wore their yukatas including the teachers, and some of the boys wore jinbeis. Everybody looked really nice all dressed up in their traditional garb.

If you look closely below you can see “tanabata matsuri” written in calligraphy on yellow paper on the wall behind the students. Believe it or not, the Deedee Deer students wrote those themselves during their shuji classes every week.

After arriving and getting changed into our yukatas, we all sat down and wrote out our wishes on the tanzaku. After that we moved to the gym and performed the songs that we had been practicing for a few weeks. First, Missy Mouse and Deedee Deer class sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Then Robby Rabbit class sung Mr. Sun, which is a song that was new to all the parents so it was a lovely surprise. After that, Deedee class sang It’s a Small World and then all the students joined in and sang the Tanabata song together.