Day 5...and what a day it has been!!

How do I even begin to describe the day. It was just AMAZING!

The day began early with all of us getting onto a bus that took us about 90 minutes west of Tokyo to Oshihara Elementary School in Yamanashi Prefecture. Other than the school I taught at in Taiwan, this is the most beautiful school I have ever been too.

The drive there changed dramatically as soon as we drove out of Tokyo Prefecture.

About and hour into the drive, we stopped at this HUGE rest stop along the highway to take a little break. Rest stops in the states need to step it up!

First, the bathroom system is impressive. You can tell which stall is empty, the type of stall and what is available. 

My first stop was to get a black tea latte at Starbucks. I know, I know! Starbucks! We get green tea everywhere here and I wanted a black tea. Don't judge! Then I wandered around looking at the shops and all that is available. You could spend hours here! It's more like a mall than a rest stop.

And of course there are the vending machines.....They are everywhere!

After the rest stop we drove to this unbelievable school called Oshihara Elementary. It was my favorite school visit so far. First of all, the school is extraordinary in every way. Second, the children were all so friendly, excited to meet us and so willing to share. Finally, we saw great teaching.

Oshihara is a welcoming, state-of-the-art, open-concept, eco-school (man, that's a lot of hyphens) that just impressed all of us. The school was built to incorporate nature into every aspect as well as featuring beautiful architecture and design. The only thing missing was some air-conditioning but, other than that, it was quite glorious.

The moment we drove up we were welcomed by the principal and a group of students yelling "Hello!" from their gym class. They were all so excited to see us!

We dropped off our shoes, slipped on our slippers and took a tour of the school.

 Everything was just gleaming and bright! That's a classroom on the left and the hallway leading to other classrooms on the right. Grades 1 and 2 were on the first floor, Grades 3 and 4 on the second and 5 and 6 on the top floor. Elementary schools here are all grades 1-6 with kindergarten being a choice that families make but is not part of public schools.

We then went outside to tour the grounds. Students learn about nature and animals by growing and tending plants around the school. They even have an area where they raise different animals. At this particular time, they only had one rabbit.

 This cube below is a time capsule that students write a letter to future selves and are stored here (at least I think that's what was translated).

 The little garden above is the 2nd grade science project.

Students are responsible for keeping the gardens and plants alive and healthy and here are their tools. How cool is that!!?

We then moved back into the building to visit classrooms and have lunch with students before watching a problem-solving lesson taught by a 3rd grade teacher.

 Students had a little competition to see who could find a 4-leaf clover. Here are the photos of the students who did!

 Look at the slippers lined up at the bathroom entry!

Flowers were everywhere in and around the building.
 

This is a hand washing and drinking fountain station outside a classroom. Again, the little mesh bags hold a bar of soap so you can wash your hands.

 One of the classrooms was learning Japanese characters so they had us sit with them to learn how to write the characters for a rice ball. That was much harder than you would think.

 There were opportunities to learn English around every corner.

Our group was split up into smaller groups to go sit and have lunch with students. The students are expected to serve the class and all wait until everyone is ready before they begin. Here was the lunch I was served...milk bread, potato salad, eel, soup, cold milk and yogurt with citrus fruit. It was delicious! The group of 5 students I sat with were so funny and tried so hard to try out some English. You could tell the teacher had worked hard to teach them some phrases. Somehow we were able to communicate. We then exchanged some small gifts. I brought them some sea glass and wooden bookmarks from LLBean and they all gave me different forms of origami.

They are expected to clean up the class after lunch and are also are responsible for cleaning the class at the end of the day. Here are some of their tools. Can we begin to do this at our schools in the U.S.? Can you imagine?

Oh, and I almost forgot about why I'm here...to learn about math instruction through problem-solving. I witnessed one of the best lessons I have every seen (and we didn't have the interpreter with us at the time). Suguro was there to help us out, thank goodness, so we were able to capture the basics but, honestly, we could totally see what she was doing and I was blown away!

The students generated all of the ideas and she captured their thinking. So cool!

We then visited a 3rd grade classroom to watch a lesson on division with remainders. There were at least 75 people watching this lesson and the students were engaged and so patient with it all. Teachers are expected to teach and be observed by the entire staff at least once every couple of years and then there is a post discussion about the lesson. It's quite impressive to watch. I think we have a lot to learn from how teachers collaborate, learn and teach here in Japan.

So, this is only the first part of our day. After the visit here, we headed off to stay at the Tokugawa Hotel, a traditional Japanese hotel. That, my friends, will be part 2.