Our Idea of Healthy Food

We would like to extend our warm welcome to M and his family Shi & Yu, and A and her family L & Y! M and A came up from Petals Class and joined us for a few days during winter school. We are looking forward to making lots of fun memories with you!

 MORNING ACTIVITIES

Kakizome has really caught our attention. We continued working on it and today, our friends requested to work on their kakizome on a table. Vieda presented options that we could work on (りゅうHiragana writing for dragon, 2024 in Kanji characters, and 正月　for New Year). Our teachers were impressed as everyone was interested in writing Kanji for New Year as “This looks more like beautiful. The others are too easy!”. Our kakizome turned out quite amazing to which our teachers commented, “Wow, these are really neatly written!” Well done, Flowers! On another table, we continued to enjoy making things with loose parts materials. It was fun to take note that how we could be so spontaneous while having lots of fun making things that we love!

As our friends got excited about sharing what they did over the winter break, we decided to have a drawing activity about winter break. We enthusiastically shared the fun things we did as we drew, which could have caused us to draw longer but we enjoyed chatting about what we drew with our friends😊

For free play, we love playing restaurant with some new sets of cooking utensils and foods, too! We liked the addition of hand puppets and stuffed toys in our dramatic play area, which perfectly match our play restaurant!

 QUESTION OF THE DAY (Does healthy food taste good?)

We talked about the special food that people in Japan eat on the New Year’s Day called o-sechi. The mere mention of it sparked an interest in the class. We tried to see what food was in the o-sechi plate.

            Hi: I eat it!

            M: Kamaboko. I like it.

            Gr: I like kamaboko, too!

            E: We got that one from somebody. It was in one big cube, and we spilt it and I think that we are in there.

            Re: When I was small, I called it o-sechi obento!

            Be: The black one is called kuromame.

            E: How do you call that kamaboko in English?

(Vieda and Cameron laughed as we didn’t know that answer)

    R: I and El ate it (kurikinton) and it was so yummy!
            A: I like “kobumaki”.

            M: I like “maki”. I have a friend, M-chan!

            Ri: I think kurikinton is made from kuri and satsumaimo.

            Cl: I like fish.

As the discussion went on, we wondered what kamaboko (the pink and white food item in the o-sechi plate) is made of. Unfortunately, none of us knew the answer, so we set it as our homework. Au raised his hand and said, “But that is a really hard word that I can’t remember!”. We practiced saying kamaboko together until Au was able to remember the word. What perfect teamwork!

We went back to discussing our question of the day and started it by trying to describe what makes food healthy. Here’s what we came up with:

            Ma: Jelly is healthy.

            Ei: vegetables

            Re: sandwich

            Sh: (healthy) Because it’s good for our body.

            Gr: And it’s yummy, too!

            Th: It will make you healthy and strong.

            Au: It can help us to get so many energy.

Examples of healthy foods are as follows: apple, green pepper, mushrooms, orange, tomato, watermelon, banana, and mac and cheese. Re added, “Green things are healthy like broccoli or cucumber”.  It seems like we could not find chocolate in the list. When asked why we think it is not healthy, here’s what we replied:

            Th: Because they’re sweet.

            Ei Because they have sugar inside.

            Au: They don’t give us energy and make us tired because there are a lot of bad things inside.

STORY TIME (Showdown at the Food Pyramid by Rex Barron)

This story describes the food pyramid that balances what foods we put in our body. Unfortunately, “strange foods” such as Hot Dog, Donut, and Candy Bar came and broke the balance. At the end, fruits and vegetables were able to bring the balance back. The pyramid became happy and strong again! Re shared her thoughts as to why Candy Bar went to the trash. She said, “Why candy bar be in trash? Maybe because we don’t need it!”.

SHARING TIME

Many thanks to our friends and families who took time to send things and photos to share with the class. Today was a special day as we had four friends who excitedly shared what they did over the winter break.

(Th)

I went ice skating, and I didn’t know why I slipped so many times. Maybe because I was going too fast! (giggled). I was trying to skate on my own. I was trying to fall on daddy. Then, I pushed him!

(Ke)

This is Saipan. I went to Saipan, and I go to the beach. It’s hot! I go in boat, and I do fishing. Then I see a shark! I do “hello” and he do not eat me. This is Niigata and there’s the teacher and I do the ski. This is the rock, and this is the coral.

(Ty)

I go to Hokkaido. I do ski. I go to the mountain, and I skid down!

(Au)

Can I also show the video that I sent you when I was in Lithuania? This is the snowman that I made. I started at night time and finished in daytime. I skid down from the snow. See this!

Thank you so much for sharing! It made us felt like we were with you in your trip😊

We are excited to hear about you will find out about KAMABOKO!

Love,

Flowers XOXO