My Neighbourhood/Neighborhood - Taiki

Our neighbourhood - urban safari!

On Tuesday, our pre-schoolies 'went bush' - exploring the riverside which is a stone's throw from the school. A week ago we found 'Men at Work' - electricians, builders, bin men etc, on the 'quiet side' of the river.
Today, we had to hold hands tightly as we explored the busy main road, looking for shops and stores. We found all sorts of businesses not very far away, and challenged Naomi to draw a quick picture of each one. We think she did very well, as we told her what we could remember about each one - we went into the supermarket & found fruit & veg., meat, milk etc. In all, we found eleven different places where people work.

Chiaki-sensei in the supermarket

From Naomi's sketches we produced a fantastic flashcard set on Quizlet. Check them out for free (you can 'learn' or 'play') - download them too if you like. If you have an iPhone, you'll need an app eg "flashcard touch" - download them & use at home! Don't just use ours, by the way - whatever you are studying, somebody somewhere has already made a set! There are millions of cards for you to enjoy.

In the hardware store we found lots of colours - carpets, curtains, balls, slippers, and tools - a hammer that took two to pick up! In the DVD store we found comics & books as well as our favourite anime (cartoons). We checked out the 'oden' pot at the convenience store, as well as the ice cream freezer!

colourful carpets

Then there was the petrol station, busy with cars and a hairdresser's. We passed half a dozen restaurants - French, Chinese, fast and slow.

We really enjoyed exploring the shops and talking to people, but the main road is a very busy road. Maybe the most important thing we learned was to wait for the man to go green and beep before we crossed.

Our neighbourhood

This month in pre-school we are going to be talking about our neighbourhood, so we thought it would be a good idea to get our shoes on and have a little look around.


The first thing we did after the hot summer (it was too hot to venture out, really) was rediscover our river, which is only a trickle at the moment. We disturbed a heron, and from the bridge we could see what he was looking for. Brown fish. We didn't see any ducks, or the troll (he lives under the bridge, eats frogs and mice, and isn't very nice!). We saw spiders, butterflies, dragonflies, dandelions, and grasshoppers.

We found a truck with some workmen repairing wires overhead. They had hard-hats on, uniforms, and safety shoes. Opposite, were some men fixing a house. They also had hard-hats on, but soft plimsoles for gripping the scaffolding they were putting up.And baggy purple pants.

We found a lot of uncollected rubbish in red plastic bags (today is 'burnable day') - everyone has to put their name on their rubbish, can you believe.


We saw a stupid lad racing around on his noisy motorbike wearing shorts & a t-shirt ("He'll learn", said Jim), and some old people driving very carefully. At the barber's we found a lot of tomatoes, and we saw a recycling warehouse full of newspapers. We couldn't find a toilet at the little temple, so we had to scamper back to Luna! A big, black dog barked at us.

Lunch was a very busy time today - everyone got the call of nature so Jim & Naomi barely had time (nor the appetite!) to eat. Would you like to see what Japanese pre-school kids have in their lunch boxes? Jim is very jealous of the Thomas knife, fork & spoon set one of the children has!

A lovely day, finished off with a big book about the fruit we like - so energised they actually dived into the big bag of plastic fruit we had ready! Obviously, "We like fruit"!