Grades 3 and 4 SIS Summer School Week 4

During the 4th Week of SIS Summer School, we talked about where fishing flies come from and how they are made. 

Fly fishing dates back to 1700 years ago to the  3rd Century AD. Instead of fishing on a dock, a person stands in the water and casts a line with a fake insect on it. The feathers that look like a fly hide a hook. 

The class attempted to make there own fishing flies out of makeshift materials.

One bird that stood out in our study about feathers was the peacock. In fact, there is a giant size peacock in Shimbashi Station. 

Another bird used to make flies for fishing is a toucan. Toucans are found in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Toucans are predators. They eat frogs, snakes, eggs and small mammals. Toucans are omnivores too. They munch on fruit and nuts. Toucans are the noisiest birds in the Amazon Rainforest. They bark, bugle, and make harsh croaking sounds. People are starting to dye feathers of chickens to make imitation toucan feather colors for fishing flies because the toucan is on the endangered species list. 

Duck feathers are also used to make fishing flies. Ducks fly south in the fall to avoid cold winters up north. They fly in a V formation and you can hear them quaking in the sky. Ducks have down feathers to keep them warm in the water. All of the pictures that you see were drawn by the children. We are trying to write and illustrate in order keep things interesting and become well-rounded students. 

Parrots are very intelligent creatures and they made our feather list. They mimic what people say and do tricks. Parrots are mostly vegetarian by eating seeds, buds, and fruits. Yet, they have been known to eat a mammal or two. Parrots have beautiful feathers which are highly sought after by fly tiers. They originate in South America and there are 398 species of them. They have curved beaks and some parrots can live as pets for 80 years! 

As a part of the Tokyo STEM Club, our students designated the light pattern on a robot and programmed it to run an obstacle course.

The children did origami and folded a fish as a part of their mathematics lesson. 

In Music class, we found a common pattern of notes in rock and pop songs. The children emulated this pattern on bells and composed their own song. 

On Wednesday, we went to an isolated park and had water play with Grade 5 and 6. 

We pretty much had the park to ourselves.

There were two sides of the small park. One side had a playground equipment area and the other side had a mini soccer pitch. On the soccer pitch side, we played with water blasters. 

The children tried to maintain social distancing!

We tested our physical strength on the monkey bars while drying off.

The children experimented with oil paint on canvas in Art.

We tried our hands at some Math tricks.