Frog Shrine

This morning, we think that the sun won over the clouds - we were able to visit the frog shrine today! We sang ‘kaeru no uta ga’ as we walked to the shrine under the blazing heat and we were relieved to get there where we cooled ourselves under the big trees. However, to our great disappointment, we didn’t see any frogs in the shrine. We each washed our hands by the ‘chozuya,’ a place to wash and purify our body before we made our wishes. Taylor was curious and asked why the water was running even though no one was using it. Nanako answered that is to keep the water clean and cool. Another curious friend, Ava then asked, “What will happen in the Winter when it’s snowing?” Maybe we will find out the answer later in the year. In the morning, at the big table, we each had a turn to do ‘suimie’ which is a kind of painting using sumi (ink) just like when we do ‘shuji’ for our New Year’s activity. We first looked at five different Summer vegetables and picked one to write on to a ‘hanshi’ (calligraphy paper) using light, watered down ink and dark ink. Next to our vegetable, we wrote ‘natsu’ (Summer). Some of us needed a little help from the teachers but most of us did it all by ourselves – Taylor, Adrien and Jessica picked a cucumber, Michaela and Ava a corn, Tomas, Noa and Arata a tomato, Tokutaro and Allie an eggplant and Jeremy a green pepper. At the small table, Noa, Michaela, Jessica, Jeremy and Adrien made the last touches to their father’s day cards so that they are all ready to be given to their beloved dads over the weekend. Ava, Arata, Tokutaro and Tomas matched different kinds of food with five cards, each with six pieces of food drawn on them. Allie and Taylor were busy at the kitchen cooking breakfast! For circle time, we sang a counting song using ten fruits and vegetables. The song goes like this: ichijiku, ninjin, sansho, shitake, gobo, mukago, nanakusa, hakusai, kyuri, togan. We already knew some of them from the ‘obento bako’ song. We then reviewed the five Summer vegetables and some of us remembered very well – Tokutaro answered ‘tomorokoshi’ for corn, Tomas ‘tomato’ for tomato, Michaela ‘kyuri’ for cucumber, Ava ‘nasu’ for eggplant and Arata ‘peeman’ for green pepper. Since we were learning about many vegetables, Nanako read us a storybook titled Oya Oya Oyasai which is all about vegetables having a race and ‘togarashi no tochan’ (chili pepper) wins at the end. We read another story called Juyonhiki no Sentaku about a big family of mice after days and days of rain, going down by a river to wash their clothes on a hot sunny day. We hope that the rainy season will soon be over so that we can enjoy the bright sunshine with some cool breeze just like the fourteen mice in the story. All our Love, Nanako and Darren