話す楽しさ・面白さ、伝わる喜び！
のびのびと、すくすく育て
「ことばのちから」
Camp Report
７／３１（Fri） Camp First day
In the afternoon, we spent some time at the cultural heritage site, Kamioka primary school.
There we had an art program, 'Let’s make, play and communicate!’.
The Children were divided into two groups.
Children supported each other and created some wonderful art pieces.
Start with making name cards.
After arrival at Daigo, we made namecards in order to get to know each other.
Some are very colourful, others are simple…All the cards are so unique!
From the youngest to the adults, making things fosters communication, respect, cooperation, and altruism. In this program, we are looking at various elements of the children’s emotional development along with language activities.
After dinner time, we had a bed time story from a local story telling group.
Daigo was declared a 'book reading town’ for the first time in Japan in 2009 and lots of book reading activities take place throughout the town. The children received a present from an 80 years old granny Miyazawa-san. All the children were so excited by her hand-made Otedama (juggling balls). Thank you very much Granny Miyazawa!
８／１（Sat） Camp Second day
Breakfast time
Japanese food....
Marumiya Corporation 「Tenoritama series」
http://www.marumiya.co.jp/product/series/furikake/tenori/
In the morning, we caught live Trout fish in the Kuji River.
The Yana is a traditional Japanese fishing place, a famous location in Okukuji Daigo. Here, some children saw live trout for the first time and everybody tried very hard to catch them.
Playing in the cold water in hot weather, was the most exciting moment in the whole camp for many children.
The wild nature experience in summer time is a big event across Japan.
All the wonderful experiences in nature, and the communication between people, created valuable moments to treasure and progress in the child's development. It was a fine experience both for the natives and for those children who live abroad.
In the afternoon, we moved to a local community hall ‘Mine’ and had an exchange art program with local children.
In the ‘Let’s make a Diver City’ art program, 17 local children in Daigo participated and we created a very imaginative creature living in 'Diver City', uses lots of different materials. We were aiming at fostering an understanding of what is diversity, and how it relates to our camp. All the children, from many different backgrounds, played together and acted with confidence.
While children were making art…the parents were attending a seminar.
We invited Professor Kawakami, of Waseda University, and we had a discussion on multilingual education and childcare in a diversified culture.
we are all living in diverse environments and circumstances in Japan or abroad, and the parents could discuss and share their experiences.
We are all different but that is what is beautiful.
Afterwards, we all watched the short film’ Born With It’.
The film director Emmanuel joined us for a discussion. The film was shot in Kamioka Primary School, which we visited on Day One. The children were so excited when they found out it was the same place where we had an art program. We were all surprised that they have such a good memory!
Fun experiences bring wonderful memories.
We had a little summer festival themed BBQ at night.
We ate cotton candy, and played Yo-Yo(water balloon) scooping and quoits - typical Japanese festival entertainment. The delicious BBQ was made with local organic vegetables and sizzling meat. It was great to see the older kids looking after the smaller ones - the children had started to care for and help each other now.
We had great help from lots of people from the local NPO to create this fantastic night. Thank you for all your help!
８／２（Sun）Camp Third day
From early in the morning..we visited an organic vegetable farm.
We all worked hard to pick all the vegetables and fill up our vegetable baskets! The harvest included tomatoes, courgettes, peppers and aubergines, among others…. all grown carefully by Ms Nouchi on her charming farm.
Cooking program! we were challenged to make a multi-national pizza.
The Nonbirino-Sato where a renovated nursery school building has an authentic pizza oven outside.
We invited a cooking teacher, Ms Shoda, and made a pizza from the fresh vegetables from the farm for our lunch. Children chopped vegetables, kneaded pizza bases then decorates them with vegetables and tomato sauce.
We cooked our lunch by ourselves! we also had a birthday boy today. Some children suggested making a surprise birthday party for him this lunchtime. So we mad a special sweet pizza secretly to celebrate Kenji’s 5th birthday. Happy fifth birthday Kenji!
Camp Final Assembly
On the third and last day of the MixKicks! diversity summer camp in Daigo we assembled and handed everyone a certificate declaring that we had all completed and enjoyed the programs provided.
Have you enjoyed Mix Kids! Kids diversity summer camp?
We had as participants; two families from the UK, two families from Ibaraki, one family from Kanagawa, six children from Tokyo and seventeen local children from Daigo.
Enjoy and feel the joy and fun of communicating through your second language~Grow your strength your words~
We had lots of wonderful and unusual experiences, both fun and educational; we met new friends from different areas and countries, and made new relationships with adults. Both children and adults made lots of fun and happy memories.
We believe those experience help build ’strength of words’ and that is the way to build a language.
We are all looking forward to seeing you all again and to meet new friends next year!
If you have any enquiries about this camp, please send a message. Suggestions or opinions are all welcome!
Photo by : けいもっちゃん