Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Welcome to French class !

Bonjour !

A new school year has started at HJIS.

My name is Armel Rouault. I am teaching French to Grade 8. I hope students are motivated and I will do my best to develop their interest.

For every unit, I will give them a booklet that I prepared after checking many French textbooks and that students have to bring to every French class. We are going to review how to introduce ourselves, how to count, how to talk about family, likes and dislikes, hobbies, how to ask what something is, how to describe what we eat, ... We are going to learn new topics as well : how to describe someboday, how to describe clothes, how to describe a house, how to ask the way in a city, how to talk about school life, etc..

Many topics that I will illustrate with videos when possible to help the students being familiar with French habits. I also hope to have enough time so that students can make some creative projects using what they learn in French class.

If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact me !

Monday, August 21, 2017

Dear Grade 9 students
please download the pdf file and read it before you come to next class
thanks a lot

please download the pdf file from here

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Welcome and Chemistry class introduction

Dear parents and students.
I hope you had a great summer break.
This is Mr. Koc Secondary science (Chemistry) teacher. I will be teaching G9-12 IGCSE and IB Chemistry.

Starting from the beginning of this new academic year I will be teaching experimental techniques
as the first unit of the year to the 9th graders.

The concepts and practical skills introduced in this unit will be revisited in future topics.
 This unit contains a considerable amount of practical work and introduces a variety of practical techniques that future units will build on. The unit starts by focusing on the variety of purification techniques available to chemists.
These are the core topics that students will learn:
-        Properties of solid liquid gas
-        Changing phases
-        Physical changes and chemical changes
-        Methods of separation
Simple distillation
Fractional distillation
Filtering
Crystallization
Paper chromatography

At the end of this unit, students will have Basic knowledge on particle theory.


I wish you and our students to have a wonderful, fruitful and enjoyable new academic year with full of education. 

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Grade 9 Homeroom Welcome and English Introduction

Dear Grade 9 parents and students,

Welcome to Grade 9! My name is Mr. Chris, the Grade 9 homeroom and English teacher here at HJIS. It is a pleasure to meet you all!

For those of you who have not met me before, this is my second year here at Horizon. Previously, I have taught in Kuwait and Spain. I am incredibly excited to start this new year and look forward to working with you all over the course of this academic year. Please see my email later today for a more detailed introduction, course syllabi for all Grade 9 subjects, and the updated school year calendar.

During our first unit in English, students will be conducting a unit on developing reading skills. During this unit, students will be gain the following skills: reading for gist, summarizing information, annotating, summarizing, note taking, understanding context and purpose, understanding and using literary devices, and analyzing implicit and explicit meanings in texts. At the end of the unit, we will be reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at chepburn@horizon.ac.jp

Thanks for your time and enjoy the last weekend of summer!

Mr. Chris

September Math Newsletter

Dear Grade 9 students and parents,

I hope you had a very nice Summer break and students are ready for a long difficult year.

My name is Mr Bill and I will be Grade 9 Math teacher this year . I have been teaching Math for 17 years and last 6 years I have been in HJIS community. I am very happy to be here and I am planning to work here as much as I can. I am married with 3 children and live around the school. In the first week of every month, I will try to write in the blogs and give you information about what we are doing in the class.

This year Grade 9 students will start IGCSE program in math class.  We follow Oxford Publication IGCSE Math text book. We plan to finish 75 % of the entire topics to have more time for practice next year.

First week as a warm up, we will start basic number skills,  ratio and percentages. I will send whole year plan later via email.

Now, I want to explain some important issues and procedures in my classroom.

1. IGCSE Test:

IGCSE is a-two-years-program. Next year May, they will take the IGCSE test. This test has two options; Core and Extended. Depending on students'math level we recommend to chose the proper one. I will discuss this situation with the students.


2. Jupiter:

Our school use the Jupiter grading system as you know. I will post my Homework, grading and behavior situation on Jupiter. I may write emails via Jupiter as well.

 3. Grading scale and Homework: 

In my Math class, my grading scale is given below:

Unit Test             :  35%
Term Test            :  30%
Homework           :  20%
Quiz-Project        :  15%

After I finish one of the major subjects, I will give a unit test about the topic. It will not only measure them how much they could learn the topic but also it will be a good review about the topic.

At the end of each term, we have only one term test. It is going to be taken in one of the last weeks of each term. In this test, I will ask questions about all topics that they cover within that term. Only the last term has a different situation. In that test, I will ask questions from all over the year's topics. So they should remember all of the subjects.

Homework is one the most important issues that help student understand and solve questions easily. They have HW almost after every math class. In addition, I will give them some big projects that will be done with a group or individually .

  
4. Notebook: 

Notebook is very important for Secondary Math Classes. It is important that they keep the notes very neatly to have review later. To organize and write whole year's topics, they need a big A4 size square grid notebook. I definitely don't want them to use a small notebook and then they change their notebooks very frequently. 

They can buy a notebook themselves from a stationary or internet. Otherwise our school buy ASKUL notebooks as you see in the picture. It is 400 yen and students can buy it any time from me.





       5. Calculator:


      Scientific Calculator is a must in IGCSE program. Many questions depend on the calculator. They can buy and use any scientific one. But in class, we use Sharp EL-509 model

     
           www.amazon.co.jp



If you have any questions, feel free to contact me any time.

Best Regards      


Welcome to Music!

Welcome back to Horizon! I hope that you had a lovely summer and are ready for the new school year. My name is Ms. Shay and I am very excited to continue as your music teacher this year. I am originally from Arizona in the United States, and I received my education from Western Michigan University. This is my sixth year teaching, and my third year here at Horizon. I look forward to getting to know your children better as we begin the school year together.

This term in Grade 9 we will be continuing to work on our guitar skills and will learn many new chords as well as new melodies via finger-style playing.  We will also look at an overview of music history from ancient times to the 19th century in order to inquire into how and why music developed, and how that affects us today.

One quick note about guitars: This year, we are requiring students to purchase their own guitars, as students need to be able to practice regularly (at home) to improve their playing ability. If you need any advice or help with choosing the right instrument, more information is provided in the supply list.  Also, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at svanmeter@horizon.ac.jp.

I’m looking forward to a great year!

Musically yours,


Ms. Shay

Welcome to JNL class

Dear G9 Parents


I hope you have a great summer break with your child.
The new academic year is just around the corner.
I am really excited for the new year.


I am Higa, teaching G9 JNL class in this year. I am glad to keep working with this class mates.
It is surely going to be great and challenging year for new G9 students with fun events, fun learning.


In JNL class, we will study with essays in autumn term, with literature in winter term, with poem/classic literature in spring term. All topics are from Japanese textbook that they will get when new academic year starts.  They will also use other some books in this year.
I am planning to weekly organize Kanji quiz and Kanji homework same as last year.
At first class, I will instruct what they do and need to bring for this class.
(Just in case, please kindly remind your child to get a notebook for JNL class.)


I am looking forward to working/cooperating with you through this year.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.


Mr. Higa

Secondary Japanese Teacher

Welcome to Art Class!

Hi there!  My name is Ms. Mutrux and I'll be your art teacher this year.  I'm really excited to be teaching at Horizon and especially to be living in Japan.  In my class, we'll be creating some cool projects, learning new skills, expressing ourselves, and talking about art.  I can't wait to meet all of you!