In our Spring Saplings course, our objective is to build upon the skills and the attachment that our children already have in place and to expand and to add new educational goals. In this course, we want to merge practical education and charactor education. We will help our children learn practical skills such as writing, phonics, and reading, critical thinking. Yet a child needs much more than just practical skills, they need to develop their minds in other ways. Our children must have creative problem solving mentality, joy for living and perseverance to succeed. We will cultivate these skills and charactors in our students through our specialized classes in music, math, PE, theme, Show and Tell, concert, nature camp, and most importantly the relationship with teachers and friends. Through gaining these skills and charactors, they will be prepared for almost any learning situation in future.
Curriculum
Circle Time
This is a time when we come together as a class and greet or say goodbye to each other. It is an important opportunity for the students to speak individually in a safe and inclusive atmosphere. In addition, we sing songs that help the children learn the alphabet and get them started on Phonics. We also let the children express their personalities through dance so that they can build their confidence. Through a variety of speaking activities, we hope that each child can find their own voice.
P.E.
Our physical education class is not free play time, but it is when the kids can improve different motor skills through structured play. Our students will gain new abilities with activities like tumbling, using a jump rope, using a balancing board, and even running an obstacle course. We want the children to improve their hand-eye coordination, their balance, their spatial awareness, and their timing. In addition, all of these fitness activities will be done in a fun and pressure free atmosphere, where the effort counts more than the result. While at this age, some children are not aware of how their physical actions could hurt themselves or others, we will teach them the importance of following the teacher’s directions during the activities and show them how to protect themselves from getting hurt. Overall, our children will have better control over their movements, which will help them succeed in future physical activities or even team sports.
Speaking
The goal of talk time is to teach the children realistic English skills. While we will always be speaking to the children in English, we must help them develop their own speaking skills so that we can communicate equally with each other. Each term we will start with basic vocabulary and grammar and build on these throughout the term. Especially during this time, we will only let the children communicate to us in English. Although this might be difficult at first, eventually the children will become more confident in speaking and will be able to speak more freely in school. Furthermore, the vocabulary that we will use during talk time will be tied to the theme of the month. Native or nearly-native speakers will also learn correct grammar and standard American pronunciation. Even native-speakers make grammar mistakes as children, and we will be there to guide them and help them learn how to express themselves clearly.
Reading
Level 1: Students are introduced to phonics sounds.
Level 2: Students will learn how to read 3-letter words.
Level 3: Students begin to read difficult words, containing bends and long vowels, as well as “Sight Word Readers.”
Level 4: Students begin to read beginner level books.
Writing
Level 1: Students learn how to hold a pencil and make straight and curved lines.
Level 2: After building this hand strength in Level1, students begin tracing and writing letters independently.
Level 3: Coordinated with our phonics reading class, students learn to write beginning and ending letters and short vowel sounds.
Level 4: Students learn how to write larger words that contain blends and and long vowel sounds.
Level 5: Being able to spell a large number of words, students begin learning grammar and writing their own sentences.
Theme Study
Our main purpose for our theme study class is to help the children understand the world around them in an interactive way. Children understand science theme more when they can see how it works through hands-on experiments and other activities. One of our big projects is a kid’s garden where the children can begin to know how plants and flowers grow. A garden is a wonderful way for the children to discover the living world. We will also introduce the children to a variety of science concepts ranging from the weather to the life cycle to simple geology. By utilizing scientific vocabulary and helping them understand scientific concepts, we will provide the students with a solid scientific base that they can build upon in the future. For the social studies related theme, our focus is to open the children’s eyes to the world community. We will teach them acceptance of others and help them be aware of the world, through introducing them to other countries and other types of people. Yet social studies does not only include the world, but also includes the community and even the self. By teaching the children about jobs in the community, how to communicate, and even emotions and good manners, the children will have more of a sense of their community, how they fit into it, and what they can do to improve it.
Music
Learning and appreciating music is something that can turn into a life long love for a child. Not only will the children be singing songs, but we will also teach them how to play an instrument. For children of this age, instrument like the xylophone and the ukulele can help them learn hand-eye coordination, learn the musical scale, realize how everyone can provide a portion to make a piece of music, and learn patience through waiting for their turn. These are all skills that cross the boundaries of music and move into other areas of their lives. In addition, we also help the children work with percussive instruments, like castanets, which will help them develop a sense of rhythm and beat. Through our music instruction, students will find yet another voice in which to express themselves.
Story Time
Everyday we carefully choose stories that connect to the theme of the month. This is an integral time when we ask our students questions about the story and help them learn new vocabulary and grammar. Using the books, we want the children to learn to empathize with the characters and to realize the importance of positive behavior.
Math
Our goal is to teach the concepts behind simple math, yet we want to make math fun and interactive for the children. We will do this by using a wide range of materials that will help the children improve their knowledge of shapes, learn how to sort, graph and recognize patterns, as well as understand visual and oral math problems and simple fractions. We create math materials that are drawn from our students’ lives, are hands-on, and help our students explore the world of math, while having a concrete, visual sense of each concept. Ultimately, we want our students to learn addition and subtraction to be ready for their future education.
Arts
Since our student’s art skills are improving, they need to be challenged to create more complex pieces of art. We will introduce them to sketching, shading, painting, sculpting, and constructing art out of found objects. Through structured and free activities, the children will be able to find the artist within and learn how to express themselves through art.
Show and Tell
Every Friday the children will bring an item, to school and present it to the class. This is a classic teaching activity that helps the kids work on their presentation skills, their listening and speaking skills, and improves their confidence. It is hard for many children to give presentations, and even more difficult when it is in another language; thus, this activity will provide the children with the skills they need to overcome those fears.
Time Table
Monday – Friday
Your child will be placed in a class with students of his/her age.
Saplings1 : 4 years old by April 1st, 2024 Saplings2 : 5 years old by April 1st, 2024 To avoid having students with different English levels together in the same class, we will place students taking English language classes (Speaking, Reading, and Writing) based on their English ability. We offer 4 levels for each language class. Speaking: Basic Speaking Skills, Beginner Speaking I, Beginner Speaking II, and Intermediate Speaking I; Reading: Alphabet Recognition, Phonics I, Phonics II, and Beginner Reading; Writing: Writing Readiness, Alphabet Writing, Phonics Writing I, and Phonics Writing II.
Tuition & Fee Information From April 1st, 2022
Entrance Fee
Kiba/Tsukishima 78,000 yen
Tuition
(Please refer to the table below for tuition + other fees.)
Facility Fee Material/Insurance Yearbook Luau Party Halloween Ticket School Concert Nature Camp LTOnline
A uniform package
55,000 yen（Tax included）
Extended Nursery
10,680 yen / 10 tickets (30 min / 1 ticket)
Tuition & Fee
Afterschool
Healthy School lunch
Everyday, we provide a healthy balanced school lunch for your child as an option. ※1 year lump sum is for April to March.
Healthy snack
Learning Tree is making homemade organic snacks for our students from next Monday. Preschoolers and kindergarteners can get the snack at 2:00pm. Afterschool students can receive it when they arrive at school.We will not use any processed materials. ※1 year lump sum is for April to March.
Extended Hours Nursery Pass
For working mothers, we can take care of children from as early as 8:00am, and they can stay as late as 6:45 pm. This is an optional program separate from our preschool and kindergarten.
Time slots (1)8:00-8:45 (2)8:45-9:45 (3)13:45-14:45 (4)14:45-15:45 (5)15:45-16:45 (6)16:45-17:45 (7)17:45-18:45
In addition, we also offer an Extended Hours Nursery Pass during summer school and winter school. Please consult us for details.
Bus route and Fee
We have a school bus service to pick up and drop off your child. If you would like to use this service, please consult with our staff so that we can adjust the bus route accordingly. We will try bring the bus route as close to your home as possible. This fee is fixed for all students; it’s not prorated for the number of commuting days. If you live more than 8km from our school, the bus fee is double the regular fee.
ECAP
For students who want to use their time wisely and experience lots of different activities ECAP(Extra-Curricular Activity Program) is arranged. The program is from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. during our snack time and scheduled by term.
Kiba
Rugby Monday
Cooking Tuseday Wednesday
Dance (Saplings only) Wednesday
Drawing Thursday
Tsukishima
Storytelling Monday
Dance Tuseday
Theater Wednesday
Music Making Club Thursday
Drawing Friday
Uklele Friday
Storytelling / ストーリーテリング 月曜日
Dane / ダンス 火曜日
Theater / ドラマクラブ 水曜日
Music Making Club / 音楽創造 木曜日
Drawing / 絵画 金曜日
Uklele / ウクレレ 金曜日
Uklele / ウクレレ 金曜日
LTonline
Theme videos, Song videos, Craft videos, P.E. videos, Story videos, IXL account for online math support,Photo Gallery, LT Connect (our photographic community), Access to event live streams and recordings, Access to the LT Library at Cafe Lulu, and Access to their class online.
