The Recent Weather in Matsumoto

My garden's strawberry plants

The recent weather in Matsumoto is very changeable. Sometimes it was freezing and snowy, and sometimes it was really warm. Even if it snowed, the snow would start to melt soon after. Actually, it snowed in the night on Wednesday 23^rd but the next day became sunny and mild.

And also there is a big difference in temperature between the day and night. This might be bad for our health, so I must be cautious of my family’s shape and me.

My neighbor cherry blossoms 

Sometimes there’s a breeze and there are gale-force winds too. There is a proverb, “March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.” I remember this proverb during this season and I feel that spring is just around the corner these days.

I like this season because I can sense the beginning of spring and I’m excited somehow. On the other hand, I dislike it because I suffer from hay fever. A running nose and itchy eyes are terrible for me. I wish I wouldn’t have these symptoms!

Anyway, I would like to enjoy this weather to go somewhere with my family.

Haruka

Sunny summer in Shinshu

Hi Ikuya

What's the weather like with you? It's sunny and hot here and there isn't any snow on the mountains. We're having a school bazaar today. My brother's going to play football in the sun. I'm going to go shopping with my grandfather at the bazaar. I want to get some snacks. Come and visit. You can stay at the my home. You can sleep on a futon.

Email me soon.

M

predicting sequences - cuisennaire rods 101

Getting a hang of logical sequences is a big step for little ones - noticing patterns and predicting a continuation thereof is no small achievement. We tackled this today threading different shaped buttons onto pipecleaner, and asking the children to repeat a series (eg. triangle, circle, star) - this got easier after all the pink ones had been used and they had to put up with inferior colours!



We backed this up with red & blue cuisennaire rods, building a sequence that repeated (B, B, R). Small beer so far, but much bigger challenges ahead now that they've 'got the idea'. We will be starting to think about categorising things and making sets, as well as measuring things and comparing sizes etc. Going to get very scientific (no - we'll be using hands, feet, elbows etc!)

We also made weather machines, to help us track the changing weather now. Pretty pointless doing this during the overwhelming heatwave we have endured here this summer. "Sunny and hot" would have become a bit dull, day in day out! Mind you, "rainy and cool" will wear thin quickly too!

Spring Planting weather topic

This is the perfect time of year to exploit the change of weather and do a little planting. I also find that this time of year lends itself well to study the weather topic as everyday seems to have a season in itself. Today, rain, last week wind and sun, and snow still fresh in our memories.

My younger students have been making these delightful little planters showing the change of seasons. Also a good oportunity to talk about the natural environment, which we did before hand whilst pouring over some pictures of the outdoors. Excitement is mounting as we look forward to all of the fun things we can do outside!

Well, that is if it stops raining that is!

Tana