Our sense of touch and a Singaporean feast

Today we went to Singapore on our world Ohana Chefs tour. Goh san comes from Singapore and she taught us how to make “bifun”. We used carrots, cabbage, mifun which are very small, thin rice noodles and dashi and soy sauce. We first chopped the carrots into small pieces and sliced the cabbage quite thinly. Then Goh san put them inside a frying pan and we watched, listened and smelt everything cooking together in the pan. We experienced many different senses when doing this activity. Our hands were touching the food as we chopped it, our eyes were looking at everything, our noses were smelling the food before and after it was cooked, our ears were listening to food sizzling in the pan and our mouths were getting ready to eat the food……….We had to wait until snack time before we ate it, and it was so delicious……may way in Chinese!

At the second activity table we had a mixture of sand (beautiful light coloured sand) and corn flour. This is called moon sand. We think that maybe if we go to the moon, the sand on the moon, will feel similar to this. Inside the sand Sayaka hid marbles and leaves. Today we had activities that focused on our sense of touch. We felt the moon sand and tried to feel the marbles and leaves. The marbles were hard, smooth and round and the leaves were irregular in shape and soft to the touch.

The next activity we had was with coloured ice cubes. There were two kinds of ice cubes; one with just water and food colouring and one with water, food colouring and cornstarch. We held them in our hands and they became smaller. We also noticed that they were different when they were melting. The ice cubes created a liquid with a thicker consistency when they melted.

We said that the ice cubes felt cold and we saw that after a few minutes they became smaller. We said that their size was like a baby because babies are small. And then we noticed that they completely disappeared; but there was colour left on our hands which was a bit puzzling.

Afterwards we played another sensory game using a feely box. We put our hands into a box with a hole in it, and we felt inside. Inside were some of the very same things that we smelled yesterday during our one circle time. We tried to guess what was inside as we couldn’t see anything. We were just feeling the things with our hands and fingers. We guessed whethere the things were hard or soft but couldn’t guess what they were. However when we smelt our fingers we remembered that this was the same smell from yesterdays activity. Yes, it was the coffee. There was also some rosemary and some corn.

Goh san read us a story called “Bringing in the New Year” and it was all about Chinese New Year and how families prepare for the celebration. Before the new year starts, people clean their houses and put up a variety of decorations. They use lanterns, good luck amulets, fire crackers and more. They also cook fish and gyoza which are some of the delicious foods that they will eat over New Year. They set up a tree with decorations which they call a “Gong hay fat choy” tree which is supposed to bring them good luck.

Goh san taught us how to count in Chinese e. g. ee, ar, san, su, oow, ryo, chi, pa, jyoow, suwh. We sang “Twinkle twinkle little star” which is “Isan isan” in Chinese and we also learnt “Where is thumbkin” in Chinese. It is “Sew tsu papa”. Thanks for a fabulous day of learning and fun. We look forward to being in Africa tomorrow.

Love always Shelley, Hisami, Goh and Sayaka.