In the third-year japanese language class, they are learning the "From the bottom of my heart, please come here" unit. In this unit, the event "Flowers made of caps" was held. We decided to collect caps from the Yumenomori staff room and Kodomoen, then cleaned and dried them, to use them to make a picture. We have been preparing for a long time with all our hearts so that the people can come and enjoy it.

This time, the 1st grade and 3rd grade students, and their families received a letter asking them to come. We separated the collected caps by colour and made flowers and the sky. Various ideas came up such as "I want to put a butterfly perched on the flower", or "I want to put a black flower here", etc.

The activities are not just about putting caps on. The students have taken off the caps, and used glue so that visitors can enjoy it themselves. I could tell that they provided warm hospitality.

What I felt while they were making it was the beauty of the colours of the caps. Normally, caps are rinsed with water and disposed of as plastic waste, or recycled, but when they were sorted by colour to be used as materials for art, I was surprised at how beautiful the colours of the caps were. When I paint with paint, I tend to have monochromatic colours of red, blue, and yellow. They taught me that there are various shades of light blue, and when theyre combined, they make something even more beautiful.

After it's completion, everyone announced their impressions. All of the 1st grade students who were invited commented happily, saying "It was fun." We took a commemorative photo at the end with the completed artwork. I wish I could tell you what it was like in the video.

The 3rd grade finished the flowers made with caps safely. Later in Japanese class, the teacher asked if the students would like to work on a summary page with kanji skills in the next class, a student said "I want to play shiritori with the kanji that we have learned." We decided on some simple rules: 1) They have to be able to be read, and 2) They have to have the same "Bushu" (radical) in kanji. Furthermore, the third rule was that a child added was "It's ok to make mistakes." While staring at their kanji skills for over an hour, I was able to connect the shiritori at the end.

The 5th and 6th grade students had a screening of "Moving shapes, Moving pictures" that they made the other day. It's a video created with an iPad, but if you view it on a large monitor, it's a full-fledged, cool and amazing video. All the comments on the video were all positive and everyone was happy to watch it. The entrance of the town hall is like a small art museum where the works of the 5th and 6th grade students are displayed. There are only a few days left until the day we move into the new Yumenomori school building. I think it would be nice if the new school building also became like an art museum with everyones artwork.