Konnyaku Park!
21st February 2019
The spring breeze had already gone this morning and winter wind came back again. Today is a big day for our school. Ohana Gives Back event is coming tonight! Our parents and teachers were busy to prepare for this important event and our day was also busy to learn and to enjoy together in Flowers.
Morning activities
When we came in, we saw two bowls, a pot, measuring cup, measuring spoon, and a tray on the table. We also saw orange juice and three different kind powders. Maki asked us if we could guess what we’re going to make. Lisa looked closely at the box of gelatin. Momo saw the whisk and shouted “Orange pancake!!!” We did like the idea of Mo’s orange pancake, but that wasn't it. Maki asked us if we knew a Japanese food called KONNYAKU. Some Japanese friends knew konnyaku in rectangle shapes, and we didn’t see any rectangular konnnyaku on the table. What was Maki talking about?
First we mixed the gelatin, sugar and hot water, while some of other friends measured 400cc of orange juice twice and mixed it with the gelatins. Konnyaku and orange juice? Our first recipe was Konnyaku-Jelly, a low calorie healthy desert!
The second recipe was much more complicated. We had too cool down the hot water a little and then put Konnyaku powder little by little while another friend mixing it. We had to wait about 30min for the power and water to settle, so we decided to do the rest during the circle time. Also we had another small amount of different power to mix it with a little bit of water. It was called “calcium hydroxide” which would help the Konnyaku to stay together.
During play time, some of us saw the Konnyaku powder getting thicker and had a very unique odor as well, but we were also excited to see the change.
Show and tell
Someone was so excited to have show and tell this morning. She couldn’t wait for her turn since last month. We decided to do her show and tell at the very beginning of our day, so she didn’t have to wait for her special time. She brought one big sheet of paper which said “Making something new out of something old.”
Em: We have to collect my old crayon, and cut them in piece, put it in the molds. I put it inside the oven, I took them out and put it on the bowl.
Wow, what and fascinating and fun thing to do! We had so many interesting questions for her!
Al: How did the crayon became so colorful?
Em: We mixed it up and put it in there.(pointing at the oven)
Ai: If you take the crayon out, was it hot?
Em: It was hot. We had to wait for a while.
Tai: Why did you make a new crayon?
Em: Because… I don’t know. I was going to throw it in the dust.
Tai: How did you cut it?
Em: Sharp, sharp scissors, it’s so sharp! My hand was hurting for cutting. It was little bit hard.
Mo: Can we eat it? (It did look like chocolates, and very yummy too!)
Em: No!
Sa: Why did you bring it?
Em: To show everyone.
Te: Why did you cut it?
Em: Because it’s big crayon. That’s why I cut it!
An: Why did you put it here (oven)
Em: So I can melt it.
She also told us that she made these beautiful eco friendly crayons yesterday, and her first plan was to bring her Flower girl picture, but she decided to share this activity instead.
Thank you Em for sharing such a great idea that we can all try. I wonder what a colorful picture we can draw with those rainbow crayons!!!
Circle time
After Em’s show and tell, Maki asked us if all of us knew what we did at the big table this morning. Mo said that we were making pancakes. No no no! Although we learned how much Mo loved pancakes, that wasn't it at all! Al said that we poured water and orange juice in the bowl. Tai told the class that we were making Konnyaku. Maki asked if we all knew what Konnyaku is but only some of us knew, so she showed us the picture of Konnyaku. It came in different shapes and sizes. She also asked what it was like when we were cooking. Alona said it was like a jelly, but what did it look like before it became jelly. We were so busy enjoying cooking, we’ve forgotten all about the different powders! When we saw the bowl of Konnyaku, it looked very different from when we were mixing. It used to be more like water, but now they are very thick and we had hard time trying to mix it.
But wait, before Konnyaku became jelly like or powder, what did it look like? Where did it came from? What is it made out of?
Wi: Came from the trees
Tai: Ground
Na: From Halloween. It smells like pumpkin.
Tem: A horse bone
Or: From under the snow.
We all had amazing ideas, but it actually comes from a plant, a Konnyaku tree. But which part of the plant? Leaves? Stems? Roots? Maki then showed us the picture of Konnyaku tree and explained that its actually made out of roots, a Konnyaku potato.
We then tried to mixed the Konnyaku with Calcium hydroxide. Oh my, the whisk felt so heavy and the smell was strong! Many of us thought it smelled like fish, but Na thought it smelled like cookie… Well we know we won’t be asking Na for cookies now… Then, we took turns to go to the table to make Konnyaku into a ball. The hard jelly like texture had become like a slime or thick glue. We made hundreds of Konnyaku balls, and some of us didn’t like the feeling at all so they made a few and gave other friends a turn. Some of us, especially An loved it, and stayed on the table for a long time helping making balls. Then we had to boil them for 20 minutes to get rid of the smelly odor. Since we had so many Konnyaku balls, we had three rounds of 20 minutes to boil them all, while we enjoyed Maryna’s ballet class.
Ballet Class
Another favorite moment of today was Maryna’s dance class! We went through the rules again to enjoy the dance class to its full potential, we glued our feet on our spot and chanted “This is my spot! I’m going to dance here!”. It is nice not to worry about bumping into each other and expressing ourselves through dance movements.
We started with our opening routine “Listen, listen” and danced to a new song called the “Penguin song”. The Penguin was so hungry, it decided to go look for a food, bouncing jumping high, swimming and catching the fish. What a cute and fun dance! Another new dance was the scissors dance, we opened our legs like scissors, big, bigger and biggest and closed it all the way. We did lots of stretching and was now ready to dance. We had group of friends who wants to dance to “We’re going on a bear hunt”, and some wanted to dance to “Little Swan”. We took a vote and decided to dance to the bear hunt song this time and then to the “Little Swan” next time. We could kept on dancing for much longer but our tummy told us it was time for snack!
Snack Time
For snack time we decided to have a little taste of our Konnyaku balls. The teachers put some Denraku-Miso on the Konnyaku and passed it out to us, after we finished eating our own snacks. Some of us was too scared to try, some of us tried but didn’t like it or couldn’t swallow it, and some of us loved it we kept asking for more!
Park Time
Have you hear the rumors going around yet? The rumor was that step park is finally open again! We weren’t sure if the rumor was right, so we decided to go and see, and if it wasn't open, we would just go for a walk. Lucky us, it was open! We were so excited couldn’t keep our self anymore. It was time for running around! Although the park was very crowded because all the other class and schools was waiting for our favorite park to be ready, it didn't stop us from having fun in the beautiful spring weather!!!
Lunch Time
After lunch we got to try our Konnyaku-orange jelly! We all tried to finish our lunch so we could have a little taste of yummy Konnyaku-jelly for desert!! Those of us who were curious enough to try loved it very much and kept asking for more. Unfortunately, we obviously didn’t make enough to satisfy all of us to eat so we all got to eat only two servings. We should have definitely made less of Konnyaku and more Konnyaku-jelly!
Busy day with all the activities but it was definitely a warm, fun, and yummy day. Hope to see you all later tonight at Ohana Gives Back Event!
XOXOXO,
Big belly Flowers Class