Japan Geography and Food Coop

Today was our welcome to Japan day. The class began by looking at the globe and seeing where Minnesota was ans how far away Japan was. The kids all took guesses as to how many islands made up Japan. Many guessed four and the highest guess was 6, the answer was more than 3,000! They listened to a cute book "The Way We Do It In Japan. Then they broke up into two groups and did two stations. In the first station they labelled maps of Japan with different types of geography and the older kids labelled the main islands and some major geographical points of interest. They talked a bit about volcanoes.

In the second station they had an opportunity to learn about different foods eaten in Japan. They learned why they eat so much fish and rice. They learned some of the similarities from other countries we have studied recently and then they were able to taste several types of noodles (udon, soba and curly) with a sweet soy sauce. They also tasted soynuts and clementines (instead of tangerines which we could not locate). They ate around a table on the floor to imitate Japenese eating.

Then they broke for snack and returned to build a volcano with potting soil and a coke bottle. They made their flags out of felt and a dowel rod and then we ended with the volcano experiment, a big hit, especially with Ciaran. They enjoyed the session and when we were going around receiving their passport stamp they mentioned their favorite part of the day and Ciaran's was the volcano and Rhiannon's was eating Soba noodles. Sirah's was probably being allowed to sit on the table and eat noodles.

On the way home from coop we stopped to get some groceries and they wanted to buy Japanese food. We bought a variety of noodles and sauces to make. When we were loading the groceries at the register the cashier noticed and Ciaran said "We are eating japan". She smiled and asked if the hot chocolate was from Japan too (the green tea was). She asked me if my kids would really eat this and I explained we were studying the country this month and would try it. She looked perplexed, I smiled and said "They liked Thai and Chinese, but they found some of the Middle Eastern too spicy when we studied them!" I'm sure she was surprised when she looked at Rhiannon (5), Ciaran (almost 4) and Sirah 18 months! But then again we are full of surprises.

Peace,
Tenn