kodomo No Ie

Saturday Japanese Class News

September 2015 (New School Year)

1: Class 1 (Kindergarten) - Ms. Ozeki
2: Class 2 (Elementary Lower Grades) - Ms. Umehata
3: Class 3 (Elementary middle grades) - Ms. Yamada
4: Class 4 (Elementary Upper Grades) - Ms. Oota
5: Class 5 (Japanese as a second language) - Ms. Peregon
6: Class 6 (SAT AP Preparation) - Ms. Sakamoto


Greetings from KNI Japanese School!

The KNI Saturday program incorporates the introduction of various events and holidays in Japanese education. These events include a class presentation, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Japanese New Year, Setsu-bun, Girl's/Children's Day and other customs such as Ikebana and Japanese tea ceremony.
Through the participation in these events, the goal of our program is to help maintain and develop the language skills of Japanese children who are being raised in America. Our hope is that someday both the parents and children would say in retrospect, "We are glad we have studied Japanese."
We understand the weight of extra curricular activities here in America for students in middle and high schools to participate. Considering their busy schedule, we focus on providing a foundation for Japanese reading and writing along with mastering 440 kanji characters (learned during 1st-3rd grades in Japan) by age twelve. Although the number is less than half of what a student in Japan learns in elementary school (1006 kanji before the completion of 6th grade), we believe it could be overwhelming and create a negative attitude toward learning Japanese to our children growing up in America. We also would like to note that those 440 characters are comparable to 410 that are in the AP Japanese Language and Culture Exam for which we offer in our original study materials. Please visit AP Japanese for details..
For those who may be wondering about the annual Candy House, please take a look at each of the class descriptions with the ★ symbol and use it as a reference for new school year's activities.
Please note that each class specifies a certain kind of textbook and materials. Please read handouts from your child(ren)'s teacher for more details.

Class 1 (Kindergarten) - Ms. Ozeki

One of the most important lesson goals for this class's students is to learn to stay focused on listening until the end of sentences since Japanese has a different structure of grammar, compared to English.
Lesson Goals:
- Learn how to write one's own name in neat handwriting with proper pencils to support children's writing pressure.
- Get familiar with Japanese words including words with 'dakuon' characters(" ゜" or " ゛" through hiragana card game.
- Understand instructions in Japanese; this is imperative for classroom safety control.
★ Participate in various Japanese events to deepen understanding of Japanese culture.

Class 2 (Elementary Lower Grades) - Ms. Umehata

Through Daikon radishes' growth, children will observe and experience the joy of growing vegetables and the value of life.
Lesson Goals:
- Present the experiences of Takuan pickles making in front of the classmates.
- Learn how to read and write words with 'dakuon' (" ゜", " ゛", ie: ぱ、ぴ、ぷ、ば、び、ぶ).
- Learn how to write 80 1st grade kanji in the collect stroke order and details .
- Make a "????” journal with drawing of what she/he actually experienced.
★ Participate in Candy House to use Japanese that are related to buying and selling of candies.

Class 3 (Elementary middle grades) - Ms. Yamada

Lesson Goals:
- Read out loud clearly without breaking meaning blocks (the reading must be free from English pronunciation of 'th' or 'R' sounds)
- Listen to short sentences (around 15 letters) that include Kanji characters from Japanese 1st (80 characters) and 2nd (160 characters) grades, and write them down on notebook with grids. (This will eventually help them type Japanese and its conversion to the Kanji characters).
- - Learn how to write a journal from children's experiences in chronological order.
★ Participate in the Candy House project by composing solicitation and thank-you letters.

Class 4 (Elementary Upper Grades) - Ms. Oota

Lesson Goals:
- Grasp meaning of phrases or sentences from the punctuation symbols.
- Predict the meaning of certain Kanji characters from their parts.
- Listen to short sentences (around 20 letters) that include Kanji characters.
from Japanese 1st (80 characters), 2nd (160 characters) and 3rd (200 characters) grades and write them down on notebook with grids. (This practice will enable students to type Japanese from their dictation skills).
★ Write letters appropriate for different purposes such as solicitation, posters or thank you cards. Lead the Candy House project, and oversee the lower grades students.

Class 5 (Japanese as a second language) - Ms. Peregon

The goal of this course is to learn beginning Japanese in English. Currently there is not 2nd and 3rd level of JSL class. This course is intended to help students start learning Japanese for their future studies.
Lesson Goals:
--Able to read and write sentences indicated in combination of Hiragana and Romaji (alphabetical phonetic writing of Japanese language).
--Able to listen, comprehend and write numbers, time, phone numbers and basic arithmetic.
--Simple greetings and self introductions
--Listen and sing along Japanese songs

Class 6 (SAT AP Preparation) - Ms. Sakamoto

Although some high schools may not allow students with Japanese background to take Japanese language credit tests as their second foreign language, if they do allow, students who have completed KNI's Japanese school class 5 should be able to to manage those credit tests without any problems. On the other hand, in AP test, individual student can take test without school's permission, and students are expected to have college level knowledge. Additional 88 kanjis are required beyond 80 characters from Class 3, 160 characters from Class 4, and 200 characters from Class 5. The results will be up to each student's effort, but this class will offer the support and materials needed for those who are focused on this goal!
The course is titled as SP prep class, however there is no PC to practice the actual test taking. In this class, the students use the original curriculum to deepen the understanding of the Japanese Language and Culture. The curriculum include the 89 additional kanji not covered in the previous classes, roughly 3 pages of weekly assignments, including the email submission of short sentences. To accommodate the students who may miss the class to participate in the other school and community activity, all the lecture material as well as the homework assignments will be communicated through this link .
*One of the students from this program who has neither attended Asahi nor been enrolled in school in Japan, has scored grade 5 on his/her first AP exam. This is an amazing accomplishment!!




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