未 来 を ひらく 思 い を つ た える

Cover picture: "Soar high! "Many kites are ﬂying in the New Yearʼs blue sky.
Some look serious, some look happy, and some look a little silly…
All the kites are so powerfully soaring high in the sky that they seem to exceed the height of Mt. Fuji.

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It is as if it represents everyone's growth for the year ahead.

We look forward to
your ideas!
“Hiraku” provides useful informationand the latest news related toEnglish and childhood education.

・Your recent interests
・Topics you want us to cover
・New content etc etc…
If you have ideas to contribute,please share these with us!
“Hiraku” Editorial Department
TEL：06-6135-0150
Mail： hiraku@kinderkids.ed.jp★Awaza School has Opened！
★Introducing the New PHONICS ISLAND Characters

Published inJanuary 2023 Vol.25
Next issue isplanned to comeat the end of March

Kinder Kids Inc.
TEL：06-6135-0150
Pulala Tenma 2F, 3-1 Ikeda-cho,
Kita-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka. 530-0033★Inﬁnity Elementary Schoolʼs 2nd Semester EXPO held
★Grad Club “Interview with graduate students”★Grad Club Message

www.kinderkids.com日本の心と、英語の力。Kinder Kids inc.

Nishi-Ku in Osaka City is becoming increasingly
popular among families with small children.

AwazaSchoolOpen!

Awaza is adjacent to Honmachi and Higobashi areas, and may
have a strong image as an ofﬁce district. However, due to therecent trend of returning to the city center, Nishi-Ku ranks highamong the 24 wards of Osaka City in terms of both a growing“Frespo Awaza” shopping complex

population and rising birth rate, making it one of the most popular areas for families with small children.
Kinder Kids Awaza School is conveniently located about a 5-minute walk from the Awaza Metro station, and while the neighborhood is bustling with the opening of the Frespo Awaza complex,
which consists of a supermarket, a drugstore, medical clinics,

Shimazu Park with itʼs lush greeneryetc., it is located just off a major road and in a quiet environment. There is a park with many trees in the immediate vicinityof the school, which is expected to be used as a playground forthe students together with the school playgrounds.
Kawaguchi town, on the west side of the Kizu River, is an area
where a foreign settlement was established in the Meiji Period

Old Kawaguchi foreign settlement site /Kawaguchi Christ Churchand is called “The cradle of Osaka's modernization and opening to the outside world”. Kawaguchi
Christ Church, which is considered ”The birthplace of modern education in Osaka", still remains andgives historical link to the area.

KINDER KIDS Academy Awaza School
has opened!

Message from Hiromi Seyama,
the head of Awaza school
As a mother of aIʼm excited to welcome you to ourson who goes to anew school that opened right afterpreschool, I try toNew Year.

communicate with

Various innovations have been

allparents

made at Awaza school, including

based on how I

the introduction of interactive

all decorated in lovely colors. The large wall mural on

would be happy towalls

the second ﬂoor depicts with the schoolʼs original

be treated. I alsoclassrooms and the ﬁrst appear-

KINDER KIDS International Academy Awaza School, the28th KINDER KIDS school, opened January 2023.
The large school facility has 12 classrooms, an indoorgym, an outside playground, and a rooftop playgroundcharacters, it is as if they are leading children into theworld of PHONICS ISLAND.
Awaza School is also equipped with a cooking facility
where delicious lunches are prepared for children, aparking lot and bicycle parking for parents,
and a ramp for baby strollers.
The school's facilities are designed tohelp children enjoy their day and forparents to feel comfortable picking
up and dropping off their children.
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Message from Thor Helgason,
the Academy Manager

Hiromi Seyama,
the head of Awaza school

thedealwithanypossible concerns

Thor Helgason,
the Academy Managerwithmagnetsinallance of the new PHONICS ISLAND
characters.

in advance so that parents do not have to

Our goal is to provide children with the best education in a safe

worry.

environment. The Academy team is hoping to build aWith clear and detailed explanations, I want

long-lasting bond with each and every child at Awaza School.

to make the parents who are sending theirchildren to a preschool for the ﬁrst time
feel at ease and can rely on us.

HP

Instagram

We look forward to meeting all of you atAwaza school which offers an excellent
learning environment.

6-5-13 Itachibori, Nishi-ku,Osaka-shi, Osaka2Characters have been Renewed!

FOCUS！

Inﬁnity Global Elementary
School performed its ﬁrst
English-language playat the 2nd Semester EXPOIn December, Inﬁnity Global Elementary School concluded thesecond semester with an English-language play.
Children prepared a lot for this day.
Angry Apple

Funny Frog

Greedy Gorilla

Busy Bee

Cool Caterpillar

Cycling Cicada

Dancing Dinosaur

Elegant Elephant

The renewed characters of PHONICS ISLAND, which were supposed
to appear last year, were ﬁnally unveiled in January 2023!
「Phonics Island Picture Book」
With the new look of the phonics characters, Phonics Garden Picture Book,
which was previously included in theinitial set of teaching materials, will be
replaced by the「Phonics Island PictureBook」for children enrolling in KINDER KIDS from January 2023.
“Phonics Song” has also been changed to “Phonics Island Song” tomatch the feel of Phonics Island.

Incredible Iguana

Excited Fox

Gentle GiraﬀeHungry Hippo

Kissing Kiwi

Laughing Leopard

Phonics Island

Music Data

キャラクター紹介

音楽データ

Songs

Mighty Moose

Quiet Quokka

Singing Snake3

the history and evolution of clothing, how clothes are made, what kindof impression the colors give, and other things related to stage
costumes. They even made a loom out of cardboard boxes and madeoriginal coasters. Students also had a ﬁeld trip to a theater and saw themusical "Dorothy" and felt the power of expression and words.

From October to the Performance Day In order■to please the parents who would be attending theevent, students made drinks from four countries(U.K., U.S., Singapore, and Japan) that would
appear in the play. The students made props
for the play, learned how to dance from astage dancer, and practiced how to say
their lines out loud.

Juggling Jellyﬁsh

Audio Book

Orange Octopus

September In the project-based learning, students learned about■

Noisy NewtCharacters

The audio of “Phonics Island Picture Book”
and “Phonics Island Songs” are available fordownload and listening on Kinder+
CONTENTS page.The Introduction to eachcharacter is also included.We hope that eachfamily will enjoy practicing pronunciation by
singing the Phonics Island Songs.

Phonics Island Picture Books can be purchased at the school ofﬁce.

Tired Turtle

Upset Umbrellabird Vacuuming Vulture

Wobbly Walrus

Youthful Yak

The English language play is an original story inspired by the Mexican picturebook "Nino wrestles the world" in which the main character challenges the world
champion Harutoki, but loses the battle and sets off on an overseas training
trip. Each country's team has its own special skills (e.g., the U.S. team tells jokes
to make their opponents laugh!? and the Japanese team uses mindfulness toattain enlightenment!?). The main character learns each country's signature skills and challenges Harutoki
once again, and with the combined strength of the entire team, they win the title of World Champion.
The main stage for the play was a real wrestling ring!

Pilot Penguin

プロレスラーHarutoki（先生）も登場

Running Rabbit

Zippy Zebra

After the ﬁnale, the studentsʼ faces were glowing with a sense of accomplishment.
We received many positive comments from parents, such as "It was great to see how enthusiastic
the teachers were and how the students responded to that enthusiasm" and "The best part was
the students enjoyed themselves from the rehearsals to the actual performance”, and comments
like these were a great encouragement to the teachers.
The third semesterʼs EXPO will be the culmination of the year, and we look forward to seeing theInﬁnity students grow even more.

4Interview

Grad Club
Message

Interview with graduate students
I want to become a teacher who smiles andenjoys childcare like the teacher I met as a child.

Grad Club Manager
Andy Asher

Ms. A.U. graduated from KINDER KIDS
Higashi Osaka School.

In 2022, we were able to resume many of our popular events as

She attended Grad Club from her ﬁrst year ofwell as hold new ones. Our newly planned excursions to interesting

A.U.

elementary school to the third year of juniorhigh school and is currently working part-timeat Grad Club. We interviewed Ms. A.U. about
her past, present, and future at Kinder Kids.

memorable experiences. We will continue to oﬀer unique English
experiences through a snow event and a trip to Okinawa and so on.
In 2023, we will ﬁnally resume the Study Tour to Australia! We are▶ What were the best things that you learned at Kinder Kids and GradSince I was listening to a variety of English accents at KINDER KIDS,

our students, which had taken place for 10 years until 2019.

I did not have much difﬁculty with the listening comprehension test.

Children will have many valuable experiences on this trip andAlso, the Grad Club classes covered a wide range of topics, so I wasthat will greatly increase their motivation to learn English!

able to learn a lot of vocabulary.

We hope that this opportunity to speak English in a rich

▶ What motivated you to work part-time at Grad Club and what wasyour impression of working there?

nature-ﬁlled environment and to experience a new culture will

When I was looking for a part-time job where I could use English, I

help many of our Grad Club students to make even greater strides!

saw an ad for a position at Grad Club and applied for it. I am currently

We thank you for your continued support. May this year be happy

working in the Saturday Class, and I have noticed how hard theand fruitful for you all.

teachers work and how much responsibility they have when taking
care of the students, which I did not realize when I was a student.

ko TriperAndy UshAustralia r
Study Tou

Study Tourto Australia !
ckis coming ba

GRAD CLUB’s Christmas Party▶ What made you decide to work for Kinder Kids?
The main reason is that I really enjoy spending time with children through my part-time job at Grad Club.
Also, I had always wanted to work in an English-speaking environment, so I began to think about joining

18 Yolo Base ,Osaka

12/(Sun.)▶ What kind of teacher do you want to be? What are your objectives atNise

excited to once again oﬀer this wonderful overseas experience toClub?

ideal for me.

Hills

places and our ﬁrst trips to "British Hills" and "Niseko" wereKwansei Gakuin
University
4th year student
in the School of Human Welfare

Kinder Kids because I thought that providing childcare in English would beBritish

Kansai

Alice Aqua Garden

3 Tamachi ,Tokyo

12/(Sat.)

Kanto

Kinder Kids?
When I was a student at Kinder Kids, there was a teacher who wascheerful and always had a smile on her face. Iʼll do my best tobecome a teacher who enjoys providing childcare and spendingtime with children, just like my teacher. Also, I'd like to transfer
to an overseas school and experience childcare abroad !
I would like to carefully and thoughtfully work at each job and build
good relationships with children, parents, and all the staff I workwith. I will do my best with a cheerful and energetic attitude.
5

We look forward to the day you become a Kinder Kids teacher!

We were proud tosee the children
enjoying the all-English musical performance by theTheater company founded by graduates of Osaka
University's School of Foreign Studies.It was the only
event that parents could attend and we were happy
to be able to leisurely talk with them.

A funny English
magic show madethe last Kanto Grad event of the year enjoyable for all
the parents and children!
We will continue to plan many more events that caterto their interests!
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