#spring decorations

🌙💐

So here’s the board as a whole. I’ll go over all the bits and pieces next.

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The interactive activity for this board is to have the kids vote on what their favorite flower is so we can see what the favorite is in school. The selection of flowers to choose from is honestly just what came to my mind at the time.

I voted for sunflower!

Next, is some vocab words for spring. These are also just what I could think of at the time, so they might be a bit random. Using vocab words related to particular seasons or events is one of my favorite things to include on my boards, because it gives the kids a chance to learn words that we wouldn’t necessarily be studying in class.

This little guy is my town’s mascot, Suisen-chan. Our town flower is the daffodil and Suisen-chan is a daffodil boy, so I knew I had to include daffodils in the board. Honestly making those daffodils was probably the hardest part of this entire board, because I am really not good at paper crafts.

That about finishes up the spring-related parts. On to graduation! I figured it would be a good idea to point out the most important graduation-related word: congratulations. Whenever I write vocab words in English, I always make sure to include the katakana readings as well. This makes it so students won’t be intimidated by the reading and may actually be able to identify the sound of the words.

As graduation nears, I’ve had many students ask me about my experience with elementary graduation in America. They are shocked to find out that elementary school graduation isn’t a thing AND that by the time I was in 6th grade, I was already in middle school. Because of questions like these, I decided to make this chart that compares grades in the USA and Japan.

As always, I have a note from Gunma-chan and I for the students. This time, we’re wishing the 6th graders well as they move on to middle school.

And of course, to celebrate graduation and the epitome of Japanese spring, I added some cherry blossom branches. Of all the educational signs and design I put into this board, my fellow teachers were by far the most impressed by the branches. They even said that walking by my board gave a feeling of hanami (cherry blossom viewing), which has also turned my board into kind of a sightseeing spot that teachers who wouldn’t normally go by have gone up to see. So that’s still pretty satisfying, even if they aren’t actually appreciating the English in the English Board.

Completed felt flower bouquet.