My great cousin Hiroko

 I like my cousin Hiroko. She's my father's older brother's middle daughter. She is seven years older than me. I often played with her when I was a child, but we spend less time together  since she got married.

She is very active ! She likes to travel. When she was young, she went to India to volunteer at Mother Theresa's House, by herself. She plays Japanese drums with her daughter until recently.

She is tall and has brown eyes.

 One thing I love about her is her sociable, cheerful, and sunny personality, so she can change any atmosphere cheerfully.

She has a son and a daughter. Her son got a job this year, and her daughter will become university student from this April. So she  will become active again. She's trying a challenge 100km walking now!

Young Learners - Can Do by themselves!

 

 Yuuna introduces her family...

Meet Shuma and his family...

 This is Mashiro and her family...

Emika inroduces her family...

I'm sure you'll agree these young learners have drawn lovely portraits of their family members, and can talk really confidently about them as well! Well done Emika, Mashiro, Shuma & Yuuna: termendous project

Elementary, my dear Taisei: digital native "Can Do"

 I can totally talk about my family, and manage all the #edtech AND make a load of creative + editorial decisions on the fly, under time pressure...give me a job!

Unfortunately, Taisei is still at elementary school, but he could do a hell of a job for any number of businesses locally & trample any staffroom of high school teachers that I know of!

A young man's presentation that uni students would stuggle to beat (time taken, artwork - no eraser! -, diction and confidence, editing skills)...

This is my family: Riku

 

Taking advantage of Riku's lovely drawings of his family members, we used Adobe Spark Video (iPhone app) to put his commentary together - I say "we"... I showed him where the buttons/tabs/options were & he dived into creative mode like the digital native he obviously is! ("Get out of the way, Jim!").

Riku has recently joined us at Luna, and I could see his shoulders going back as he gained confidence from doing this 'first' in our group. I think you'll agree this is an awesome little project?!

Takeshi's Blog Profile

 About me

I'm Takeshi Tachikawa and live in Tokyo. My age is 37.

Likes and Dislikes

I like to spend time with my family. I dislike arguing with everybody.

Hobbies and Interests

One of my hobbies is playing smartphone's games. I play the game for 3 or 4 hours a day. However, I think I should get interesting in outside activities.

My New Year's Resolution

I think I should use time effectively. it's why I spend 3 or 4 hours a day to play the game. So I decided the two resolutions, which were reading books and listenning to English programs on the radio. I want to replace two hours from playing the game to that.

Posted for Takeshi

A stitch in time - a New Year's letter

Dear Jim,

How are you? You must have had a nice holiday in Australia!

I have a nice new year's holiday at home as well. My daughter and my brother came back from Tokyo with their family. My granddaughter is four and my grandson is two. They are very cute. However, they are very noisy. We have a lively table every night, although I'm very tired. Anyway, they go back to Tokyo soon.

By the way, I have to sew my restaurant's tablecloths during the holiday. I like sewing, although I feel a little bit blue thinking about so many things to do. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures you take in Australia. Have a fantastic holiday!!

All the best!

Miyuki

Airu says...

After reading "Shopping for Trouble" - Describe your very best friend, and explain why you stick together.

My mother and her mother are good friend. So I and my best friend have known from we were 4 or 5 years old. But we have been best friend from we became adult. Of course we were good friend from we were children.

I don’t know why we became best friend. I think one of reason is we like same artist.

From ten more years ago, we go to their concert every New Year’s holiday. And we stayed same hotel room two or three days. I find I don’t care about my life style when I stay with her. And I don’t care about her life style, too. So I feel comfortable with her. We only can meet twice or three times every year. But we can understand each other.

One day, I understood she felt uncomfortable about her friend. She said nothing. But I could understand. After few years, I said to her about this. She was surprised, and she became smile. I think she understand me, too. If we say nothing when we stay together, we don’t care. And we don’t feel uncomfortable.

My sister said to me, “Your friend is always looks like her.”

Posted for Yuri

The Annual Hanami BBQ - Sunshine, smiles and satisfied stomachs

Where's the meat?

Last Sunday was Luna's annual hanami BBQ party along the Susugi river bank and what a blast it was! The sun was out, the cherry blossoms were almost in full bloom and we got to share the whole experience with a host of our students, families, friends as well as the teachers from Sasabe kindergarten. Even Damian's mum made a flying visit to join in with the festivities! It was great to see some many familiar, and some not so familiar, faces all gathered together to have a great time.

That's more like it!

Lots of our wonderful guests brought along something to share with the rest of the party goers. An excellent effort made by all. Fortunately everybody remembered to bring their appetites with them. It was quite the sight seeing all the different dishes from the classics sausages to Sri Lankan and Moroccan style dishes and of course the imperative Japanese BBQ food: the onigiri and the oinari san. We at Luna however like to take the traditional, let's say British, way of hosting a BBQ. Lots and lots of meat and hold the salad! And boy did we deliver. There was always something on the BBQ from start to finish (a special thanks to all those who helped cook all of the delicious food) and the air was filled with a fantastic aroma all day long. Everybody was left stuffed, satisfied and possibly slightly guilty from devouring such a feast.

Everybody tucking in

Whilst the adults were busy  responsible with BBQ tending and beer drinking duty, the children were enjoying themselves by running around and collecting cherry blossoms, making their own "flower pots" in paper cups and soaking Damian sensei with their water pistols! Luckily for them Damian sensei was far too full from his 20 portions of sausages and drumsticks to waddle after them. Maybe it would be a good idea to bring a lasso next time to round up the mischievous trouble makers.

Many thanks to all our fabulous guests for making this such a joyous and memorable event, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!  We look forward to hosting you all again next year!

Damian Gowland

New podcast episode - Misaki interviews Tana

Yes folks, the skeletons come tumbling out of Tana's closet in this exclusive 'teacher bares all' interview.


Just how much did you think you knew about our effervescent Springbok sensei?  Find the latest installment of Luna's podcast series on the easy listening page (tab above) or go directly to the podbean .


Why not subscribe, y'all, and save me boring you with updates like this :)

(By the way, I think Misaki does a terrific job, don't you?)