Message from the Principals 5/16/2025

Today's Topics:

1: Important Reminders

2: House Points

3: Learning Highlights!

1: Important Reminders

• May 23 - Celebration of Learning: Action Ambassadors

• May 26 - Memorial Day (NO SCHOOL)

• May 27 - Teachers' work day (NO SCHOOL)

• May 28-30 MAP testing for all students

• 2024-25 Yearbook is available for pre-order now!

  • Please make sure to order before May 20th!

• Summer School registration is Open and spots are filling up: https://www.hopeoki.org/summer-school

2: House Points

Dragon - 5048

Hydra - 4690

Phoenix - 4562

Basilisk - 4523

3: Learning Highlights!

For the IPC unit "Magic Toy Maker", Prep students explored different materials used in toy-making. They tested whether objects like foil, plastic, fabric, wood, and rope could bend, twist, or stretch.

Later, students worked in groups to sort materials they thought would be best for making stuffed toys, considering softness and durability.

Prep students have been exploring the art of shadow puppetry. As they create their own puppets, they are also learning how shadows form, blending creativity with simple scientific discovery in a fun and engaging way!

In Grade 1 our "History Detectives" are learning to use time-related words such as today, yesterday, a minute ago, 3 days ago, 1 week ago, 1 month ago, and 1 year ago. As part of their activity, they created personal timelines by arranging their own past photos according to these time expressions. This helped them better understand how to describe events in chronological order using appropriate language.

Last week was INTERNATIONAL COMPOST WEEK, linking to our SDG focus for Action Ambassadors. The Grade 5 class completed their DIY Compost kit to sell at the event to raise money for the “Onna Village Social Welfare Council”. The learners designed their own logos, compost holders, and packaged soil along with instructions (English and Japanese) on how and why to compost.

In ELA G5 started reading the biography of “Louis Braille” linking to the theme of international connections and historical impacts from the IPC unit, “Here and now, there and then”. Like Louis, the learners used their resilience to read and write in braille, before they completed a mind map summarizing the key points.

G6 did an experiment in Science that was closely connected to SDG 6 and our Celebration of Learning Event: How different filters can clean our dirty water (tab water, soil, sand and stones.) They had four different filters (sand, gravel + cotton, coffee filter, charcoal + sand) and poured 100 ml of their dirty water in each filter. Their learning goals included recording their results, presenting the data in an appropriate format (bar model for example), evaluating the reliability of the experiment, and how it can be improved.

Grade 7 had a History debate which was focused on the "Curiosity" Unit. Their topic was” Was European curiosity a justifiable reason for the colonisation of Africa during the Scramble for Africa?” The class was divided into two groups and we had pro and con arguments.

Grade 7 also worked on their SDG projects. They are in the building process and one group learned card magic from Mr. Brandon for their upcoming Exit Point!

HS World Languages Students held their Language Museum yesterday! They presented their one-year learning journey of studying German, Latin or Japanese in different sections such as "Speaking and Listening", "Writing" or "Learning Methods and Strategies".

Thank you and have a great weekend!

-Mr. Brandon & Mr. Brian