A taste of Japan

Today, we are back in Japan from Kenya. We made a Japanese flag with red chiyogami. The word Chiyogami comes from the root chiyo (thousand generation) and gami ( paper). Chiyogami is Washi paper that has been hand stenciled or printed with traditional Japanese imagery using bright colors and patterns. We also made our obento box with paper-clay and paper. In our obento box, we had onigiri, pasta, yakisoba, vegetables and fruits. Another activity we did used real rice for kitchen play. The rice was colored and we put some herb leaves in with it. First, we smelled and guessed what kind of herb it was. Jennifer guessed it was Lavender, but it was rosemary. Ava said it is her grandma’s name! In circle time, we did “curry rice no uta” and “obentobako no uta” in Japanese with hand movements. We all like these songs and now know many words in Japanese especially food related words. Today’s book was called “Yoko”. Little kitten Yoko’s mom has packed her favorite lunch today-sushi, but her classmates didn’t think it looks quite so yummy. Most of us know sushi and love sushi, so we are wondering why… Next was our cooking time. Today we made our own onigiri with special seasoning. We grinded sesame seeds and added salt, sugar, dried bonito flakes and soy sauce. Some of us made faces with seaweed. We loved our onigiri and most of us especially loved eating the seaweed. We also did a “Five Senses” activity. After smelling, touching and hearing, we used our sense of taste. Tomorrow, we can finally open the five containers and find out what they are. The last activity we did involved using jelly powder. First we tasted the jelly powder and guessed what flavors they were. Then we added hot water to make jelly and tasted them again. We used our finger and licked all the flavors. We liked tasting the jelly, so we tried them after lunch again. We wonder what we are going to cook tomorrow. Cooking is so much fun and we love to TASTE! All our Love, Ayaka and Darren