English - November Newsletter

Dear students and parents,

     This month in LA we will be covering our second unit of the year - Directed Writing: Diaries, Letters, and Podcasts. In this unit, students will learn how to consider audience, purpose, style, and register when writing. These skills will be used to read, analyze, and write diaries and letters (formal and informal). The project at the end of this month will ask students to use these skills to work in groups to create podcasts.

     We will also be working collaboratively with Ms. Shay's music class to create a music video for their Celebration of Learning performance on December 10.

Mr. Chris

GP HW due 11/4

´Activity 2.26

´Activity 2.24

´Activity 2.25

´Activity 2.22 – tell my why it is a fact or why it is an opinion

´Activity 4 (1)- activity book 3.4

Monthly Musical Update

Dear Parents,

This has been another exciting month in music class!  This month, the Grade 9 students continued our study of music history, progressing through the ‘Age of Invention’.  We also began preparing for this year’s Winter Performance, “A Celebration of Learning,” which will showcase many of the different things that Horizon students have learned and studied over the course of this term. We are really looking forward to this new, exciting format for the performance!

Musically yours,

Ms. Shay

G9 JNL News Letter

Dear G9 Parents,

JNL news letter of October

By Mr. Higa

In October, the students studied the topics below

-"The efficient speech"
They presented according to some situation. They chose efficient ways to explain in the situations. The topic was something related with their roots.

-"The origin of Moon"
This academic topic is how to inquire logically. They studied how to think logically through "the origin of moon".

-"Media"
Students are studying this topic now. They study many types of media and their points, especially think about social media (SNS).


In November, we will study "Attractive book review", "Japanese language form in many context", "Japanese poetry".
As you may know, the parents' morning  will be coming on 9th November.
I am planning to have a book review activity with their presentations.
So they will read a book which they chose, during mid-term break.
If you have available time, please join the their activity.

I appreciate for your cooperation.

If you have any concerns or question, please feel free to ask me.

JAL News Letter

Dear parents of Grade 9 JAL class,

First of all, please forgive me for not having introduced myself much earlier.

My name is Sonoko Shiratori, and I am in charge of  JAL class this school year.

I am happy as the students in this class have very positive learning attitude, and I hope that they will improve their language skills with fun and curiosity.

The students are divided into three groups depending on their Japanese skills.

Group 1 (one student) is learning Unit 14 of “Genki 2”, through which she has practiced how to express “possibilities” in various context.

Group 2 (two students) are learning Unit 1 of “Intermidiate Japanese”, where they are practicing various Japanese commonly used phrases with grammatical explanations. They are reading the selected Japanese text called ‘Is Radish a big root?’, which is originally for JNL grade 7 class.

Group 3 (two students) are learning with Japanese learning Web site called ‘Erin’s Challenge’, which encourage both of them to learn the language with lots of fun, even with plenty of listening and speaking exercises.

All the students have Kanji test every Monday.

Biology Newsletter / October

Our second topic in Biology is ''Cells and cell processes'' This unit provides an introduction to the Biology course. The unit considers the special features that make living things different from non-living objects. The structure and functions of animal and plant cells is studied. Some particular examples of specialized cells are then considered, which introduces the idea of structural adaptations for particular functions. Movement of substances within, and into living organisms by diffusion is studied. The basic nature and properties of enzymes are considered, including effects of temperature and pH on enzyme action.

This unit covers fundamental topics that will be drawn on in all the units that follow. The basic structure of cells provides essential basic knowledge which will be used and developed in future units. Knowledge of diffusion provides the foundation for understanding transport, digestion and gaseous exchange. Knowledge of enzymes and their action is required before digestion is covered in the next unit.

Special note: I will be available on Mondays after school until 4:30 and on Saturdays to offer extra help in science.

Grade 9 students prepare solutions to carry out Benedict's test.

Students use Iodine to identify starch in a food sample.

Grade 9 students practice lighting the Bunsen burner.

Rian and Omer extract chlorophyll from leaves with alcohol to test the leaf fro starch. 

GP hw - due Friday the 21st

•Activity Book Activities-

–Activity 1 (your groups letter only)

–Activity 2 (your groups letter only)

–Activity 3 (your groups letter only)

–Activity 4 (your groups letter only) read page 56-57

–Activity 5 

–Reflection questions pg. 57

Chemistry October News letter

This month students will learn about Particles, atomic structure, chemical bonding and the Periodic Table

The unit covers many essential fundamental topics, which will be revisited and used in later units (and in Cambridge IGCSE Co-ordinated Sciences (Physics). The unit begins by looking at the particle model of matter and leads onto the structure of the atom. This is then extended to include ions, leading onto ionic bonding (to link up with Group 1). The basic ideas of shared electrons pairs in covalent bonds are then covered. The layout of the Periodic Table can be introduced (opportunity for learners, in groups, to research trends within groups or across periods) and the chemistry and properties of the Group 1 metals. This unit is cross-referenced to assessment objectives A1–5, B1–6, C1–4.

These are the main topics we will cover for IGCSE combined science

• ·        Atoms, elements and compounds mixtures
• ·        Demonstrate understanding of the concepts of element, compound and mixture
• ·        Energy changes in chemical reactions
• ·        Demonstrate understanding that exothermic and endothermic changes relate to the        transformation of chemical energy to heat (thermal energy), and vice versa
• ·        Define proton number and nucleon number
•   Describe the build-up of electrons in ‘shells’ and understand the significance of the noble gas electronic structures and of valence electrons

Russian October Newsletter

Dear  Parents,

I`m Ms. Aida and I`m very happy and excited to teach Russian as Additional Language in our school.

In September, G9 students started to learn the Russian Alphabet (Cyrillic Alphabet) and did a great job. They have learnt the things in the classroom (like pen, pencil, eraser etc.) some of the sight words (like A is for apple, B is for banana) and counting numbers up to 100. The students liked to challenge themselves and tried really hard to read and write in Russian.  They also were curious about Russia and prepared interesting presentations.  It was amazing how students participated in dialog practices and all discussions about Russia.

In October, we`ll continue to explore topics such as:

• Introducing yourself
• Days of the week
• Months of the year

Please do not hesitate to contact me at saida@horizon.ac.jp if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you and have a nice day!

October Math Newsletter-2016

Dear parents of Grade 9,

We have very good pace to cover topics with grade 9 students. I hope we will finish most of the topics this year if we keep the same speed.

Last month, we have covered angles, perimeter-area, Pythagoras' theorem,  data and line geometry.

This  pace is much better than last year.

Now, I am planning to teach them speed-distance-time, similarity and loci in October.

Thanks

News Letter of G9 JNL

Dear G9 Parents,

JNL news letter of September

By Mr. Higa

Hello. I'm Tetsuya Higa.

As you may be heard by your child, I teach Japanese native class in this year.
I'm glad to have the Japanese classes with your child at Horizon.

The first month of 2016 - 2017 academic year, G9 students learnt some topics according to a text book.

The text book is published by Mitsumura which is a famous and popular Japanese language company.

The topics which they learnt, were
-"Haruni" of a poem
-"Akushu" of a short story
-"Rongo" of a historical Chinese story.

They made second series of the poem, read and understood "Akushu", and translated Chinese sentences to Japanese sentences in "Rongo"

In October, they are studying "efficient speech", "The origin of Moon" and "Media".

In my class, they have a Kanji test according to Mitsumura company textbook every Monday.

And every Thursday, they bring their Kanji homework for next test on Monday.

Last of all, I appreciate for your cooperation.

If you have any concerns or question, please feel free to ask me.

PE Newsletter

Hello everyone!

As you know we will have Sports Day on October 15th, I hope we have good weather. We've been focusing on Sports Day preparations. We have been practicing the games we will play at the event; i.e. hurdle race, tic tac toe race, relay race, tug of war, and so forth. Both the Gray and Red Teams are so ambitious about the games. We are looking forward to having another fun and active Sports Day! And also, we will have 3 games for the parents this year, too. Please come prepared!

LA October Newsletter

Hello everyone,

This month we will be continuing to read Of Mice and Men.

At the end of the class novel, we will be having a test based upon the novel, as well as vocabulary words from the novel.

Afterwards we will be completing a book report regarding the novel.

Please email me if you have any questions regarding this activities! Thanks!


Mr. Chris

GP HW due Friday 14

šActivity 2.13 - textbook 

š3.1 -Activity 3 (just the letter assigned to you),  5 (3), Activity  7, read pages 44-45 – answer discussion question

3.2 Activity 6

Monthly Musical Update

We've had a great start to the year in Music Class.

In Grade 9 music this month we’ve began our unit on music history, and have covered from prehistoric times through the 1600’s.  We’ve talked about how the function of music has changed drastically since early civilization, and how historical events and advances in technology have impacted music as well.  We also reviewed some musical techniques in preparation of choosing music for Winter Performance, which we will decide in October.

Musically yours,

Ms. Shay