Lunchtime Book Club

In our class our teacher has started up a lunchtime book club where we meet, read books, select our favourite parts and talk about them. Our first book, relating to the Japan topic is a book called Young Samurai.

Young Samurai is a book, by Chris Bradford, about a boy called Jack who reached the wondrous lands of Japan after a long voyage out at sea. He, his father, and the rest of the crew, are ambushed on their boat by ninjas under the command of an evil Japanese ninja, Dragon Eye!

He is rescued by the legendry sword master, Masamoto Takeshi, who adopts Jack after his son, Tenno, dies. Jack is left with his father’s rutter, which stores all the possible ways, and shortcuts, of the seas! He masters the way of the warrior at Masamoto’s samurai training school and prepares to defeat Dragon Eye!

The next book, after the way of the warrior, is Young Samurai, The way of the Sword! In this book Jack starts to train for the legendry Samurai competition The Circle of Three, in which he has to master ‘the way of the sword’ and, as a result, he completes it, keeping in mind that he was kicked out of the training school!

Anime

  by  7_70 

Studio Ghibli is one of the most popular Studios in Japan, and they have made some of the best Japanese anime films in history.
If you like dramatic, funny fantasy movies then watch Howl's Moving Castle. It is about a girl called Sophie who meets a mysterious wizard called Howl but the wicked Witch of the Waste turns her into an old lady.  She goes into the waste to try and find the wicked Witch of the Waste but she finds a magic living scarecrow called Turnip Head who leads her into Howl's moving castle. When she finds her way in she meets a little boy called Marco and he introduces Sophie to Howl. She becomes Howl's house maid and also in a way she becomes family. Howl has a friend called Calcifer and he is a fire demon.  He is the heart of the castle and protects Sophie and Marco. Howl is in a war and can no longer protect Sophie…

We watched another famous movie called Metropolis based on the story of a famous manga
artist called Osamu Tezuka. It is about a boy called Kenichi.  Kenichi and his uncle travel to Metropolis to arrest a mad scientist called Dr. Laughton . Kenichi meets a girl called Tima, and does not want Tima to be used for evil, so he tries to save her… this is a movie for people
who like action, dramatic and funny movies.

Godzilla Newspaper Reports

We made our very own Godzilla Newspapers. First of all we watched the film Godzilla and focused on some of the characters. We talked a lot about the setting and sounds. Did you know Godzilla starred in 28 Japanese films and 1 American Film? The clip was about Godzilla invading Tokyo and destroying buildings and there was a lot of fire in this film. It was the first Godzilla movie made by Ishiro Honda. After watching it again and again we started. First of all we planned how we would report Godzilla's attack on Tokyo and what eyewitness quotes we would use. We acted out the feelings of the eyewitnesses by putting them on a hot seat and asking them questions. Once we had done that we made up headlines and newspaper names for our newspapers. After writing a draft copy we had to write it out neatly on a piece of A3 paper that had been cut out into columns and add a front page picture.  While our teacher checked it again (this time our good copy) we waited. Finally he had finished checking. Next we put it up on the wall outside our classroom for everyone to see our fab newspapers. We all enjoyed writing the Godzilla Newspapers and the short clip we watched.

Tron Theatre Visit - 1000 Paper Cranes

After we knew about the story of Sadako and Chizuko, our teacher Mr. M managed to get us to see a sneak peek of a theatre production called A Thousand Paper Cranes. It is about a girl called Sadako
and her best friend Chizuko.

Sadako is a keen athlete and is able to do every single race except for the 600 meters. So her best friend Chizuko decides to help train for the 600 meters but as Sadako is running in the race she
becomes very ill and goes in to hospital. In hospital she discovers she has leukemia, a cancer caused by the nuclear bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Someone tells her that if you make a thousand paper cranes you could have any wish you ever wanted.

We all really enjoyed the visit to the theatre. At the end we were shown how to make a flappy crane out of origami.

Scares A Lot Academy, by Max

 A tale written at Halloween and inspired by reading about the folk legends of spooky Japan!

Decades ago when ghosts and ghouls still existed there was a school where all immortals came to learn about wizardry and witch craft and how to scare mortals and this school is hidden in an abandoned house! The house is smothered in cobwebs and most of its windows are cracked. In this very house there is a portal leading to an underground school of vampires, wizards and witches and rarely the odd kappa or oni. This story is about two friends who fallout and become friends again.
One day a vampire named Darren and a kappa named Jack were in wizardry class. It was 2pm and Mr Spooks gave everyone a new spell to learn as usual. Darren and jack thought that they would be better at the spell than anyone else .It was 3pm the end of school “finally” said Jack. “I thought that lesson was going to last forever,” sighed Darren.” I think I will be the best at the assignment, “boasted Jack. “No I will!” shouted Darren. “Yeah right you’re as dumb as a donut,” said Jack. “If you’re so good at magic why don’t we battle in the gym tomorrow at 10am “. You are on ,“ shouted Jack! As Jack and Darren walked home they were muttering to themselves, “how am I going to beat him in a battle only using spells!” Oh well a good nights sleep will help.
It was Friday morning 9:45, only 15 minutes till the fight.” Bring “that’s the bell .Everyone was in the gym. Darren and Jack were face to face .Ready go! Suddenly Jack paused and said, “what were we fighting about in the first place?” “To be honest I don’t know,” said Darren. “Want to be friends again?” said Jack “yeah! “said Darren. Darren and Jack shook hands and that was how they became best friends.

Spooky School, by Abigail

  A tale written at Halloween and inspired by reading about the folk legends of spooky Japan!

Many decades ago when witches, vampires, goblins and ghouls existed but there was very special vampire he was called count Dracula. He had spiky jet black hair, he wore a white shirt, a black bow tie and a long black cape with the collar stood up around his neck. It was the 31st October and for Vampires and witches that was a new term. Dracula picked up his spider schoolbag and started to walk to this old creepy, abandoned house that had broken squeaky gates overgrown gardens. He started to walk up the stone cobbled path towards the house; it had no door only planks of wood across the door. Dracula climbed through the door and all of a sudden it turned pitch black. He walks two steps down the corridor and it lit up like the stars in the night sky. As he walked down the corridor he saw portraits of families but he didn’t stop to look at the pictures. Dracula got to the end of the corridor and saw a door so he walked through it and there he was standing in the middle of a cobbled stone courtyard.
He saw Vampires running in at super sonic speed, witches flying in over head, Ghosts walking through walls and kappas swiftly walking in chomping on a stick of cucumber. The last Kappa to come in was his best friend Kappa (His mum went for a more original name) then suddenly the first bell went but it sounded more like a SCREAM.

A Spooked School, by Hiba

  A tale written at Halloween and inspired by reading about the folk legends of spooky Japan!

There was once a school called Giant Spooked School. The school was called that because it wasn’t children who went, NO WAY! Only witches and wizards, Oni’s and Ghosts went there. The Witches were mean and cruel with old crooked broomsticks and warty green skin. Wizards however were clever and wise with a pointed hat, so pointy it must have been sharpened. Onis are mean but have a soft side with horns of an Ox and clothes from a tiger. Last but not least Ghosts, who are sly and mischievous with a horrifying haunted song. The school lies in an abandoned field with Ivy crawling on the walls. In the classroom there are hanging broomsticks and carved pumpkins and potions as smelly as a turnip on the old dusty shelves covered in grey cobwebs.
There were once two good friends, if you saw them your heart would freeze, because these two were an Oni (A red skinned creature with horns of an Ox and clothes from a tiger.) and a Ghost (A foggy looking person that can float.) They were finishing off their work, which was for Oni carving pumpkins and for the Ghost whose name is Capper was learning a new haunted song. So since they finished their spooky work. (This for them is really hard.)
Capper, who is really mischievous turns invisible, levitates Oni's ink feather (which is a pencil) and drops Oni’s books on the ground. All of a sudden a Ghost is learning a haunted song which makes Capper jump and scratches Oni’s horn with an ink feather. “Oh no!” shouts Capper.....

Spooky School, by Adam

 A tale written at Halloween and inspired by reading about the folk legends of spooky Japan!
 It was the first day of a new term and everyone in Saint Spooks was practising their powers, apart from the new S1s (Spooker Ones) who were still shaking with nerves, but at the same time admiring the tall, grey, towering castle that had a massive green dome over the top of it. There were ghosts drifting in through the walls, and witches flying in through open doors on their broom sticks! The S1s stepped inside the gloomy building. There was green mist filling the air around them that signalled Kappa had been sneaking about with a secret stash of cucumbers. Just about the only thing you could see were the bold puffs of smoke coming from the headmaster’s long wooden pipe.

The first subject was P.G. (physical ghooling.) They went into a long narrow hall and waited, and waited, and waited... Finally a puff of smoke shot up from the ground and what looked like a zombie appeared. It was absolutely ghastly! All of the students went as pale ghost, apart from Sammy the ghost who went paler than anyone. Miss. Trunt (the P.G. teacher) ordered everyone to get into pairs, and, friends sprinted to friends, and more friends sprinted to other friends! The only two that were left were little Dracula, the Vampire, and Smonie the Oni! They had to get into pairs... As a result they were NOT good pairs! Smonie started calling Dracula names, like, “PUFFY HAIR!” and, “ROUNDY HEAD!” Because he had curly hair!!! Dracula tried to bite Smonie!

That night Dracula got to bed, still very, very upset. In the morning little Dracula checked his post, and found a bid parcel that is signed, and addressed to him... He opened it still wiping off the streaky tears from the night before, his eyes widened and beamed at it... It was a hair straightener!

Haiku Poetry

It was the season of autumn, so we thought of writing our own haiku poems like the Japanese would do. 
Matsuo Basho who was a poet was considered the father of haiku. He studied Taoism and also studied classical Chinese poetry when he was young.

Haiku is a type of poetry from the Japanese culture. Usually the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables and in the third line there is 5 syllables again.
Here are some examples: