So you think you can't party? "Zoom in" for a unique Matsumoto Bon Bon with Luna Sat 18th, 6pm JST

世界中のルナファミリーと踊りでつながろう企画！！

毎年恒例の松本ぼんぼんが、今年は コロナウイルスの影響で中止となり、残念な気持ちでいっぱいです。
ですが今年は、信濃毎日新聞が「松本ぼんぼん」を踊る動画を募集、ルナ連としてリモートで松本ぼんぼん企画に参加することにしました♪　（三密を避ける為、Zoomを使います。）

ご一緒に参加してくださる方を募集します。
現役生徒さんはもちろん、元ルナ生、世界中のルナファミリーどなたでもご参加頂けます。

参加方法として、Zoomを録画したものを投稿します。
動画は随時、公式YouTubeチャンネルにアップされ、,イオンモール松本、信毎メディアガーデンにて上映されます。
ご参加していただける方は、参加用ZoomのIDより参加して下さい！

※スクールにお立ち寄り頂ければ人数分のバンダナとうちわの貸出します。また、ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツも販売します。お問い合わせを。

＜リモート松本ボンボンZoom録画の予定＞
Zoom ID : 下記よりアクセス
日時：7月18日（土）
18：00～おしゃべり、18：10～踊り練習、18：25～本番（録画します）
終わった後は、そのままZoom飲み会（飲み会は自由参加です。いつでも退出可）
服装：ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツ（ない方はお持ちの赤Tシャツがあればうれしいです）・バンダナ・うちわ貸出します。（添付写真をご参照ください。）
来年も使えるオリジナルTシャツは在庫に限りがございますが、1枚1,500円でご購入頂けます。（ルナ生徒様は1000円で販売）

参加費は無料。 ご家族ご友人など、お誘いあわせの上 是非ご参加ください！
三密をさけたお好きな場所からZoomご参加頂けます。
ご不明な点は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。

Hello Luna family,
As you may know that "Matsumoto Bonbon " has been canceled this year.
However, "Shinano Mainichi Shinbun" will have a ''remote'' Bonbon dance event this year.
Luna will join this event .

Let's dance together with our families and friends with zoom! We will make a Zoom chat room for Luna members,and we will record the dance routine as a group. We will then send this to 'Shinano Mainichi '' for them to use. They will collect recordings from different groups and make a dancing compilation. This compilation will be played at several shopping malls in Matsumoto city during summer.

Date : July 18th, 2020 (Sat)
Start time : 18;00
Time schedule 18：00～Chat、18：10～Practice dance、18：25～Record dance together

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86759696384…

ID: 867 5969 6384
Password: 580897

Wear a red shirt/union jack/express yourself!

We can't wait to see all our friends :)

Celebrating New Year in Nagano, Japan

OUP Graded Reader "Japan"

Because of his job, we have moved house 13 times during our 34 years marriage.  We lived in Nagano city for over 15 years in total.

In Nagano city there were so many temples and shrines.  Each one was well managed by local people.

On New Year's Eve, we visited shrines and temples as much as we could.  We left home before midnight and walked to Zenkoji-temple at first.  Next we visited our local shrine Kamo.  They welcomed us with a glass of sake, a mikan-orange and a lucky charm.  Then we started our New Year walking tour of visiting holy places.  Each one entertained us with their original way: a glass of sake, a bowl of miso soup, a cup of hot sweet sake, lucky allow etc.  By the end of the tour, we were full, quite drunk and hands full of lucky charm. 

We came home about 2am and straight to bed.  We got up around 8am and had a box of New Year food.

  That was our enjoyable typical New Year celebration in Nagano city, which we are missing so much…

Posted for Sayuri

Pure & Sad love of Romeo and Juliet

I think that Romeo of the Montagues family and Juliet of the Capulet family should talk the marriage over the Prince Escalus of Verona.I guess he always hope that Verona will be peaceful.He will be happy to take an action for their marriage because he will think that their marriage will be a chance to finish the arguments between the Montagues and the Capulet and to bring peace to Verona forever.
The Prince Escalus could stop the fighting, but the Montagues and the Capulet hated each other.Even if he could remove/alleviate feeling of dislike, the dispute was happened at any moment in Verona.I would like the Prince Escalus to persuade them to apologize for past sins firstly, and then to promise not to fight again and to be good friends.
Romeo and Juliet are loved by their parents.With the advice from the Prince Escalus, their parents might consider their marriage unwillingly, but eventually they will be able to accept it because they want to be happy for their child.

House - a spooky story

Tomo is a very clever Japanese college student. He is standing on his own two feet this spring, living alone in a rundown old apartment in a quiet, sleepy Tokyo suburb. One night, he had just finished his shift and had watched the news on his phone on the train ride home. Sleepily, he got home 1 o’clock in the morning, took his clothes off and went to bed right away. 

The next morning, he realized that his T-shirt had vanished. “That’s odd”, he said. It was his favorite one, and he was pretty sure he’d left it on the floor. However, he was not certain and he was late for school. So he left, puzzled. ‌ 

He came home early that evening because he didn’t have anything special after school. He said “I’m starving!” He looked for his Cup Star instant noodles in his stockroom. “What? Why aren’t there any? I bought more than ten last week!” he said. He thought that something was strange. Suddenly, he heard a dull sound from his bedroom. He walked cautiously towards his dark room, and opened the roof-space very slowly, silently. The next moment, a mysterious massive lump dropped from the hole onto his bed. Surprisingly, the lump had long black hair and was wearing Tomo’s clothes. There was also some rubbish, too. Paralyzed with terror, the student raced out of his house calling 110 as he ran. 

The homeless tramp was arrested, but Tomo will never sleep well again – he had been stalked and spooked.

Posted for Masato

A chocoholic on pralines!

Dear Neuhaus,

As an English learning student, I am reading English books, mainly

Oxford Bookworms Collection.

When I read a book 'Chocolate', I was so delighted to find the story of Neuhaus's invention of a new chocolate 'pralines' in 1912. That was the same story that I had learned through the booklet inside your lovely chocolate box that I bought at Neuhaus in Brussels. That shop was very elegant and beautiful and shop clarks were nice and friendly. There were so many different kinds of pralines and other chocolate. They looked so delicious and I wished to have them all!

Your first invented pralines are really tasty and I can easily understand why they are still popular. Their triangular shape is unique and outstanding and they make the texture and taste more sensible and irresistible.

You also support sustainable cocoa farming, which is important nowadays. I feel no guilty buying a lot of your beautiful chocolate because that helps some cocoa farmers as well.

Thank you for your great invention of pralines. I know you keep fascinating us with your magical chocolate.

Best wishes

Sayuri

Great homework excuse!

Unfortunately, Aoi missed class last week with a painful broken wing; happily able to joke about it this week and find a homework work around! From adversity, we flourish :)

Created with ChatterKid

Love a parade?! Join us for our first GLOBAL Bon Bon!

世界中のルナファミリーと踊りでつながろう企画！！

毎年恒例の松本ぼんぼんが、今年は コロナウイルスの影響で中止となり、残念な気持ちでいっぱいです。
ですが今年は、信濃毎日新聞が「松本ぼんぼん」を踊る動画を募集、ルナ連としてリモートで松本ぼんぼん企画に参加することにしました♪　（三密を避ける為、Zoomを使います。）

ご一緒に参加してくださる方を募集します。
現役生徒さんはもちろん、元ルナ生、世界中のルナファミリーどなたでもご参加頂けます。

参加方法として、Zoomを録画したものを投稿します。
動画は随時、公式YouTubeチャンネルにアップされ、,イオンモール松本、信毎メディアガーデンにて上映されます。
ご参加していただける方は、参加用ZoomのIDより参加して下さい！

※スクールにお立ち寄り頂ければ人数分のバンダナとうちわの貸出します。また、ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツも販売します。お問い合わせを。

＜リモート松本ボンボンZoom録画の予定＞
Zoom ID : 下記よりアクセス
日時：7月18日（土）
18：00～おしゃべり、18：10～踊り練習、18：25～本番（録画します）
終わった後は、そのままZoom飲み会（飲み会は自由参加です。いつでも退出可）
服装：ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツ（ない方はお持ちの赤Tシャツがあればうれしいです）・バンダナ・うちわ貸出します。（添付写真をご参照ください。）
来年も使えるオリジナルTシャツは在庫に限りがございますが、1枚1,500円でご購入頂けます。（ルナ生徒様は1000円で販売）

参加費は無料。 ご家族ご友人など、お誘いあわせの上 是非ご参加ください！
三密をさけたお好きな場所からZoomご参加頂けます。
ご不明な点は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。

Hello Luna family,
As you may know that "Matsumoto Bonbon " has been canceled this year.
However, "Shinano Mainichi Shinbun" will have a ''remote'' Bonbon dance event this year.
Luna will join this event .

Let's dance together with our families and friends with zoom! We will make a Zoom chat room for Luna members,and we will record the dance routine as a group. We will then send this to 'Shinano Mainichi '' for them to use. They will collect recordings from different groups and make a dancing compilation. This compilation will be played at several shopping malls in Matsumoto city during summer.

Date : July 18th, 2020 (Sat)
Start time : 18:00 (JST)
Time schedule 18：00～Chat、18：10～Practice dance、18：25～Record dance together

Zoomミーティングに参加する
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86759696384…

ミーティングID: 867 5969 6384
パスワード: 580897

Dress code - red t-shirt or something "British"

If I were rich, I would go traveling with my family

If I had as much money as Toad, I would like to spend for traveling.  As I don’t have much money, I always have to make plan within my budget.  But, if there is no limitation of budget, I can enjoy everything I want.

I would like to go travelling with my family as much as I can.  We went to Okinawa a few years ago and spent good time there.  As Okinawa is south area in Japan, I would like to go to north area for next trip.  I think Hokkaido must be an ideal destination.  It is north area of Japan and popular destination for tourists.  There is a lot of famous places to go and food to eat. 

After we enjoy travelling over Japan, I would like to take my family to foreign countries.  My plan is to enjoy watching professional sports games.  Soccer games in Europe, baseball games in America, tennis games in Wimbledon and so on.  I will reserve the best seats at every stadium and buy the premium ticket of league championship.  It should be the exciting experience for my family to visit famous stadium as well as see top players.

The famous destination like Hawaii, New York, London, Dubai, etc should be another great idea and the world heritage tour will surely give us inspiration.  It is fun to think about my trip and the most important thing for me is to enjoy every moment with my family wherever it is.

Self-destruction - Dorian Gray after reading

When the artist drew the picture of  Dorian Gray, he was only a good looking boy with an innocent heart. His portrait had pure beauty, just like the sitter, Dorian .

But the Lord, a very influential man opened up a new world for Dorian and he discovered the pleasure in the dark side of the world, which he'd never tasted before.

Even though Dorian hurt innocent people to seek his desire, he still kept his youth and beauty. His sinless appearance and his wealth helped him and people still listened to him. So he'd never realized his sin. Those bad spiral took him into darker side of the world and gradually it got spoiled him like opium.

When he realized his mistakes, it's too late. Nobody listened to him and believed him anymore. Only his empty appearance with no heart was remained. No wonder he would self-destruct.

Heathcliff's epitaph - as imagined for the local newspaper

It was a very quiet burial.

Mr Heathcliff passed away and was buried next to Mrs Catherine Linton. Following his will, only Mr Hareton Earnshaw and Mrs Ellen Dean, the housekeeper, were present and there was no ceremony and no words from the Bible. No one knew about his detail, even his age, so only one word 'Heathcliff' was on the gravestone.

There were a lot of rumors about Heathcliff.

Mr Earnshaw brought a gipsy Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights from a street of Liverpool in 1770. He got along with Catherine very well and he was brought up like her good friend. But after Mr Earnshaw's death, he was treated like a servant and was punished by people in the Heights. He was getting miserable but proud and started hating the Earnshaw and the Linton. His cruelty and violence were from his sad upbringing and all his life was the revenge to two families.

 

Posted for Sayuri

Sayuri's favourite garden - Karuizawa

My favorite garden was the deep green mossy garden of our previous house in Karuizawa. It was covered with beautiful moss and surrounded by azalea hedges.  Many tall larch trees made the garden like a small reserve for wild animals.  You could see squirrels, pheasants, titmouses and even wild boar.

I thought moss grew without any care but it was quite a job to keep moss beautiful.  They were very sensitive and we needed constant weeding.  Once weeds made their way into moss, it was almost impossible to get rid of them from moss and they made moss die.

When it's autumn, colourful leaves fell on the green carpet of moss like a beautiful picture.

In winter, white snow on the moss was like a playground for small animals and you could enjoy seeing several kinds of small footprints on it in the morning. 

It was only one year but we still have cherished the beautiful memory of our beautiful garden in our lovely house in Karuizawa.

Posted for Sayuri

Father's dream

My father has a dream after retirement.It is to go various countries by a cruise like ASUKA II. On the weekend, he often watches the television programs which introduce the comfortability/facilities of some cruises and what beautiful views we can watch at visited countries. His dream is hold due to the coronavirus now. However when he makes his dream reality, I am going to go with him and to prepare a tour fee for the future tour.There are various operating companies and numerous tours.We can choose a tour duration with a flexible period. We can enjoy the short-period tour in almost one week, and the long-period tour in almost one year.

When a question comes where you want to visit after solving coronavirus situation, my answer is islands in Okinawa to watch the blue sea.The tour by a cruise will make me a lot of chances to watch the oceans.Also, it will make chances of experience to eat local dishes and to sightsee in various countries while the anchorage time is limited.

People have the right to make a protest, but…

On 25 May, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A, a black American was killed by a policeman. This incident raised a storm of protest and now it is growing to a massive riot case. This disturbance can’t be quelled and getting spread all over the country.

I think people has right to make a protest and in this case the protester fight with good cause. There is deep-rooted racial discrimination in this country. People should protest it. Their claim is reasonable but lately some of the people turned into a mob and they destroy cars, buildings… also loot stores. However, their claim is reasonable, acting of violence never be allowed in any cases.

The terrorists who hijacked an airplane in this book “Skyjack!” have right cause for themselves but murder and violence are not allowed.

An after reading task, for OUP Bookworms "Skyjack!", by Teruki

Love letter - Henry VIII to Jane Seymour

Dearest Jane,

I received your letter this morning but you sounded very ill.
The doctors have reported me that you shall get better soon, so please be strong and get well for me and our precious son, Edward.

Thank-you for giving me a son, my dear Jane.  Now I am the happiest person in the world.  I will cherish him and make him a great King after me.

OUP Bookworm - Henry VIII

You are the only person to listen to me well.  You are very kind to my daughters, Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth.  I always have a lot of enemies around me and I was almost implicated in the plot of Anne Boleyn.  But you are so different from the wild dangerous witch.  My life with you have been peaceful and contented which is the first time ever since I became the King of England.

Please live a long life with me.
I will come and see you tomorrow.

Your loving husband and the King of England

Henry Ⅷ  xoxo

Posted for Sayuri

High school student's PPT advice for COVID-19

A high school student's advice for COVID-19 prevention

A poor reproduction of Yuto's excellent PowerPoint poster, with advice about COVID-19 (can't upload PPT to Blogger I'm afraid). As you can see, he put a lot of thought & care into his design & message.

An after reading task to OUP's Read & Discover level 6 graded reader title "Cells & Microbes", somewhat relevant especially as he aspires to become a doctor (still!).

Posted for Yuto

An ex-journalist's (imaginary) newspaper report - Chemical Secret

DEAD SEALS DISCOVERED AROUND RIVER MOUTH  

Two days ago, some dead seals were discovered on some small islands and sandbanks around the mouth of the river. The cause seems to be an unknown disease. What can be assumed is the possibility that the damage was done by the water supply from the paint factory. It is said their drain carry waste products into the river. We must find out the bottom of the case.

When John Duncan got to the hospital, his daughter Christine and Simon were there with their baby. The baby was beautiful and looked healthy. John felt relieved and suddenly cried loudly. Nobody could stop him crying for a while. When he stopped crying and looked at Christine, she smiled at her father forgivingly. John talked to Christine and Simon how much he had worried about their baby and how much he had been stricken with guilt. Christine showed her understanding about her father. Finally, she recognized that her father had brought up two children desperately by himself and he had always loved them deeply. Now her father had lost many things, so they decided to live together.

John Duncan is basically a hard-working, serious man. He looked after his children very well. Since he needed job to provide for them, he had to do as his boss said. He found out a big secret about the company, but he could not bring the issue out into the open. He tried to keep the secret to protect their lives and the employees, but his daughter did not understand him at all. He lost his house and his daughter’s trust and love.
Are jobs for people are more important than seals dying?

It looks like a difficult decision. If lots of people lose their jobs, some people might not be able to live. However, also we should not ignore about environmental preservation. This is a fundamental issue. We should not compare human life with animal lives because each life has same weight.

An after reading task, for OUP Graded Reader "Chemical Secret", by Teruki

Biography of Taka - Japanese pop idol

Takahiro Moriuchi - One OK Rock vocalist

Takahiro Moriuchi is the vocalist of Japanese rock band "ONE OK ROCK". He is an excellent musical talent. Now he is one of the best singers, and "ONE OK ROCK" is getting popular not only in Japan but also around the world.

Taka was born in Tokyo on April 17, 1988. His father is a famous Japanese singer, Shinichi Mori, and his mother Masako Mori is also a great singer.

When he was 13 years old, he joined "Johnny & Associates". He joined the idol group "NEWS". However, he was bashed because he was the son of celebrities and had become famous without having to struggle, so he quit.

When he as 17 years old, he joined "ONE OK ROCK". After that he wrote many wonderful songs, and they succeeded playing a lot of concert tours in Japan and also around the world every year. Their concerts in Tokyo Dome and Nagisaen (Shizuoka) drew audiences totaling 100,000 people in two days.

Now he tries to provide a new style of music with "ONE OK ROCK" band members. I hope and cheer for their success.

Posted for Masato - a big fan!

Roar into another I-Spy challenge!

The reason why slippers were invented? Lego, the domestic landmines!

How long will take you to find ALL the objects on the list?

Thank you Liz!

Let the kids play! Quizlet Live "individual" for remote learning

Collaborating competitively!

With half our students of this class Zooming in from home, we tried out Quizlet Live to review vocabulary competitively. This worked out very nicely, in "Individual" mode.

Teacher set up the game from PC on the Quizlet site, then shared the QR code on screen; quick tap & added their names with no explanation needed (think they've been improving digital skills with being at home - isn't that an indictment against schooling in Japan?)...all members of the the game need to be playing synchronously.

Press play & realised the set was far too easy! Our learners quickly demonstrated their grasp of technology as well as the target language.

Only problem with the F2F students = using my devices we could only play as "one" person, so some collaboration required, having disinfected hands & device first (and after).

We are lucky that our students have access to smart devices I know, and that they have good connectivity. Downside is more screen time, but to be honest the variety for book-based classes is more important.

Verdict? Strongly recommend Quizlet Live Individual

What's in your drawers?

Another lovely I-Spy challenge from "Aunty Liz"...

Can you find all the things in the list on the left?

How many of these things can you find in your drawers at home?

Why not share a picture?

Have fun searchng!