General Update

Here's an update I just wrote up to be handed out at church tomorrow. It gives a bigger picture than just the preschool.

New Hope Community Life Center, Narimasu

The vision for our center in Narimasu is three-fold. We aim to reach the community through a Culture School, a preschool, and Fellowship. Since the Grand Opening, here are things that we have done and things that are planned for the near future.

Culture School

• English Classes: Beginning in January, English classes people from high-school age and up will be held. Watch for the announcement and a special discount for New Hopers. See Fuyuji Ota for details.

• Hula: The New Hope Halau held hula practice on November 12.

Preschool

• One Day Preschool: Beginning in September, we started a preschool class on the fourth Saturday of each month. See Jeremy Seminoff for details.

• Oyako Club: Beginning in November, we started a parents and kids club every Wednesday. Twelve different children have already come to One Day Preschool or Oyako Club, five from New Hope and seven from outside.

Fellowship

• Ladies’ Bible Study: A Bible Study for women began in October and is held monthly on Friday evenings. See Carolyn Hollands for details.

• DCAT: A two day conference was held in October.

• YWAM Team: From December 5 to 14, we will be hosting a mission team from Taiwan.

• Children’s Christmas Party: On December 17, we will have a Christmas party for children in the Narimasu community. See Jeremy Seminoff if you are interested in helping.

• Sunday Worship: Morning worship services will be held on Sundays beginning in January. Stay tuned for details.

New Hope ministries are welcome to reserve the center for meetings and special events. See Shoji Onoda.


Several other events and programs are in the works. We welcome your ideas and vision. Whether you would like to help with an existing program, start something new, or just have an idea, please let us know. Thank you for your support!

Oyako Club: Week One

A shot through the skylight of our dollhouse.

At our first Oyako Club (oyako means parent and child), we played with the dollhouse, made a city out of blocks, did puzzles, talked about the difference between real and pretend things, ate lunch together and bounced a ball around on a blanket that everyone was holding. Oyako Club will happen on most Wednesdays from 10:30 to 1:00. The target age range is two to four years old. Of course younger and older children are welcome.

A few neighborhood moms stopped by outside and asked for information. Maybe we'll see some of them next week.

Let's Weigh the Teddy Bears.

 

Hopscotch!

 

I Found an Acorn!

Craft Time

 

More Preschool Classes

I'm late in posting this but we had our second "One Day Preschool" on October 22. I feel like we're getting into a groove with the format. We spent some time in the park across the street (still too many mosquitoes!) gathering leaves, acorns, and pine cones for our fall-themed craft. One parent who was there even found some sweet potatoes growing in the park and dug them up-weird.

Everyone seemed to have fun and the moms who were there said they would bring their kids again and invite friends, so we may have some momentum going here. Photos in the next post.

This week we'll be taking things to the next level and start our weekly "Oyako Club." Oyako means "parent and child" in Japanese. It's going to be similar to "One Day Preschool" except that since it's on weekday mornings, the focus will be on younger kids, two and three years old, who aren't yet in preschool. I'll be using the U of N curriculum (simplified of course) and some sensorials.

Unrelatedly, it looks like we have someone to run the evening English school. That's a big blessing, because I feel like we've been hopping on one foot with the preschool project being the only thing happening at the building.