10月22日、空が高く澄み渡り、気持ちのいい秋風が吹いた日曜日、４年ぶりのハーモニーフェスティバルを無事に開催する事が出来ました。
今回のフェスティバルのテーマは世界。
Make the world a better place の【世界をよくしていこう】というテーマで、生徒たちは多くのことを学びました。
幼稚園の子たちは、水の大切さについて考え、それを言葉で発表し、歌とダンスで表現しました。
As parents, we are very careful to care for our children when they are sick or struggling with problems at home or at school. Sometimes it’s easier to support our children with these visible factors than it is to help them with their internal struggles. Our children’s emotional health is a high priority that we are responsible for as parents.
As parents, we are the best equipped to prepare our children for facing positive and negative emotions and their impacts.
Our children’s emotional health, like their stress levels, their happiness, their joy, or their sadness, effects their educational abilities, their physical health and wellness, and ultimately the course of their life. It is scientifically proven that long periods of stress increase the risk of illness, just like long periods of sadness can become dangerous depression. Our coping skills, or the ways that we choose to deal with our emotions, can give us a better or worse future.
How can we best support our children in coping with their positive and negative emotions in a healthy way? A few easy ways we can help our children grow into emotionally healthy adults are by building connections, knowing ourselves, listening, and learning.
Building connections with our children. Just like we take care of our children when they are sick, or we monitor their condition when they have a fever, we can take the time to monitor our children’s emotions by spending time with them. Take family trips, eat dinner together at the table, spend extra time doing activities that help you get to know your child as an individual. Seeing your child when they are happy makes it very clear when they are sad. It’s easier to establish a healthy emotional foundation when we take the time to create one together as a family.
Knowing ourselves and our emotions as parents. Teaching children to be emotionally healthy requires them to know how to name their emotions and to process them. A big piece of emotional health is the ability to say, “I am feeling ___________.” After identifying the feeling, children can better understand why they feel this way, sit with the emotion for as long as they need, and then release the emotion as they work toward peace, or a solution. Naming your emotions and understanding them is hard work that needs to be modeled by parents first. How can we teach our children something if we do not use it ourselves? As parents, it is a great benefit for our children when we learn how to name and experience our own emotions. We can say, “I feel angry because ______,” or “I feel happy because________,” and then allow ourselves to fully experience that emotion before releasing it. Our children learn that “bottling up” or hiding our emotions is unhealthy, because we show them the healthy way to express and release them instead. We train them how to communicate what they are feeling when we practice doing it ourselves.
Listening to our children. Another great way to learn our children’s emotional state is to listen to them. As parents, we must take the time to ask questions, to understand our child’s reality, and to encourage them to name their emotions within that context. As we listen to our children, we can carefully coach them along to understand what they are feeling and the healthiest way to cope with those emotions, either by talking about them, responding to them, or releasing them.
Learning our children. Finally, we can’t know how to help someone if we don’t truly know them. Sometimes problems are obvious, like catching a cold. Sometimes we can see the symptoms of our child’s struggles, pressures from friends or school, through their actions and emotions. Other times, it is beneficial for us to really spend time getting to know our child so we can understand when they are having trouble processing their emotions.
There are a lot of life lessons and challenges in our children’s lives. As they grow, they learn the best ways to deal with their emotions as adults. Just like we parents protect our children when they are sick, we want to make sure we are training them to be healthy in their emotions and coping mechanisms for the future.
We now have two remaining available slots for next year, April 2023,
for the -3 years old group!
We will close applications as soon as we reach capacity, so if you
would like to schedule a visit, please fill out the inquiry form. The
most recent dates currently available are June -.
Sustainability
Here at Harmony International School, we focus on sustainability. Our mission is to nurture children to “be able to decide for themselves, to have a multicultural mind, to be able to follow rules and value each other’s individuality and to care for all living things.” We’re always working toward a sustainable society with our programs. Sustainability is a priority here at the school, but it requires the whole family to make a difference in the world!
What is sustainability?
Years ago in 1987, the United Nations wanted everyone to focus on the negative effects of industry and globalization on the environment. They created a document called, “Our Common Future,” where they suggested ways that everyone in the world could work against the damages of climate change and population growth. In their document, the U.N. told us to focus on three important things: environmental protection, social development, and economic growth.
Here at the school, we encourage our students to think of creative ways to protect the environment. While they’re learning English, they’re also learning the value of taking care of one another and nature, thinking of creative ways to be helpful and kind. We encourage their social growth by English interactions, and encourage them to discuss ways to help the planet and others.
Why do we need it?
Our earthly resources like fresh air, clean water, and pure nature are all limited. We teach our children ways that they can preserve and protect their environment. Our children learn about the reasons we need sustainability every week when we go to the park. At the park, our students interact with nature, find leaves, watch bugs, and play games outside so they can understand the value of nature.
At the school, the kids learn where their food comes from, how to grow things, and how to recycle. They’re always learning the value of reusing items and minimizing waste for the sake of our big beautiful world!
How does our family practice sustainability?
Bringing the lessons we learn about taking care of our precious world home can be fun! As a family, you can take a trip to a farm or garden where your kids learn more about the origins of their food. As a family, you can participate in volunteer activities like a beach cleanup or collecting materials to be recycled.
Instead of buying new items, you can teach your children that used items are just as good. Long term, buying secondhand is always better for the environment! Even taking a trash bag on your family walk, collecting trash to beautify your area as you walk together, is a sustainable activity! Together with your kids, you can be the change that this world needs! As we have learned while studying English, a little bit of effort can go a long way.
今から数年前の1987年、国連は産業とグローバリゼーションが環境に与える負の影響に目を向けさせようとしました。国連は”Our Common Future（私たちの共通の未来）”という文書を作成し、気候変動や人口増加による被害に対して、世界中の誰もが取り組める方法を提案したのです。その中で国連は、環境保護、社会開発、経済成長という3つの重要事項に焦点を当てるよう、私たちに伝えました。
Here at Harmony International School, we focus on sustainability. Our mission is to nurture children to “be able to decide for themselves, to have a multicultural mind, to be able to follow rules and value each other’s individuality and to care for all living things.” We’re always working toward a sustainable society with our programs. Sustainability is a priority here at the school, but it requires the whole family to make a difference in the world!
What is sustainability?
Years ago in 1987, the United Nations wanted everyone to focus on the negative effects of industry and globalization on the environment. They created a document called, “Our Common Future,” where they suggested ways that everyone in the world could work against the damages of climate change and population growth. In their document, the U.N. told us to focus on three important things: environmental protection, social development, and economic growth.
Here at the school, we encourage our students to think of creative ways to protect the environment. While they’re learning English, they’re also learning the value of taking care of one another and nature, thinking of creative ways to be helpful and kind. We encourage their social growth by English interactions, and encourage them to discuss ways to help the planet and others.
Why do we need it?
Our earthly resources like fresh air, clean water, and pure nature are all limited. We teach our children ways that they can preserve and protect their environment. Our children learn about the reasons we need sustainability every week when we go to the park. At the park, our students interact with nature, find leaves, watch bugs, and play games outside so they can understand the value of nature.
At the school, the kids learn where their food comes from, how to grow things, and how to recycle. They’re always learning the value of reusing items and minimizing waste for the sake of our big beautiful world!
How does our family practice sustainability?
Bringing the lessons we learn about taking care of our precious world home can be fun! As a family, you can take a trip to a farm or garden where your kids learn more about the origins of their food. As a family, you can participate in volunteer activities like a beach cleanup or collecting materials to be recycled.
Instead of buying new items, you can teach your children that used items are just as good. Long term, buying secondhand is always better for the environment! Even taking a trash bag on your family walk, collecting trash to beautify your area as you walk together, is a sustainable activity! Together with your kids, you can be the change that this world needs! As we have learned while studying English, a little bit of effort can go a long way.
今から数年前の1987年、国連は産業とグローバリゼーションが環境に与える負の影響に目を向けさせようとしました。国連は”our Common Future（私たちの共通の未来）”という文書を作成し、気候変動や人口増加による被害に対して、世界中の誰もが取り組める方法を提案したのです。その中で国連は、環境保護、社会開発、経済成長という3つの重要なことに焦点を当てるよう、私たちに伝えました。
Risky Play What is Risky Play - "thrilling and exciting forms of physical play that involve uncertainty and a risk of physical injury" (Sandseter 2010b)
8 Categories of risky play in the Early Years(Sandseter, 2021) Play with great heights e.g. Going up high trees or buildings gives a huge feeling of achievement and some pretty good views. Play with high speed e.g. Swinging or sliding or riding on something with wheels. Anything to get that thrill of speed. Play with dangerous tools e.g. Using real adult tools Play near dangerous elements e.g. Playing near water, fire, cliffs Play where children go exploring alone Hide and seek gives children the temporary feeling of separation without any real danger of being forgotten Rough and tumble e.g. Fighting, wrestling, chasing, catching Play with impact-children crashing into something repeatedly just for fun Vicarious play-children experiencing thrill by watchin other children (most often older) engaging in risk.
Research indicates that risky play can lead to increased physical activity, improved motor/physical competence (Brussoni et al 2015 Fjortoft 2000), higher ability to assess risks and handle risk situations in an appropriate way (Ball 2002 Boyesen 1997 Lavrysen et al 2015) and positive psychological outcomes (Brussoni et al 2015 Sandseter and Kennair 2011) and general health (Brussoni et al 2015).
A category of risky play is allowing children the freedom to explore alone. Being able to explore not only satisfies the child's curiosity but it allows them to regulate their self-determination and become self-empowered (Blackwell 2015; Little, 2015).
With the possible decline of risky play there is a need to construct safe playing environments for children to experience the necessary developmental skills to be autonomous.
Without the scaffolding at an early age a child may not have the ability and confidence later in life to judge for itself.
There are cultural differences in how Risky Play exists all around the world. Research shows that in Norway and Canada, parents and caregivers are much less risk averse than those in Australia and the USA. And there is a difference between Risky Play in indoor settings as opposed to outdoor ones.
研究によると、リスキープレイは、身体活動の増加、運動・身体的能力の向上（Brussoni et al 2015 Fjortoft 2000）、リスクを評価し、危険な状況を適切に処理する能力の向上（Ball 2002 Boyesen 1997 Lavrysen et al 2015）、心理的成果の向上（Brussoni et al 2015 Sandseter and Kennair 2011）および健康全般（Brussoni et al 2015）などに繋がる可能性があると言われています。
