PTO Spring Dinner

Yesterday was the annual PTO Spring Dinner. They were nice enough to let me have a booth to share my experiences from Japan. I had several items and pictures on display, and I also had a table where people could try to fold an origami goldfish, pick up erasers with chopsticks, or make a little Maneki Neko (beckoning cat). Even one of the Klement's Racing Sausages made a goldfish. Italian did a great job! My helpers Jasmine and Jamie worked very hard all day at the booth. The dinner was a lot of fun and a huge success. Our class sponsored a basket for the auction. One of the moms from my class put it together beautifully. I heard many compliments about it, and it brought a great price.

Candy from Japan

Ever since I got my package from the Takahashi family, the entire class has been wanting to eat the candy. Today we started our Japan booklet, so it was a perfect time to do the taste test. Everyone got two pieces of candy, and I didn't hear any negative feedback. So the candy was all a thumbs up! As you can see from the picture they are all excited about the taste test. Tomorrow I hope to post some video of the class attempting to play a song on the recorder.

Kodomo no hi

Today is Children's Day in Japan. It's really Boys' Day, but they have renamed it Children's Day. The day is very much like Girls'Day with special displays of samurai dolls, special foods, and more recognizable the carp kites or koinobori.
People display the kites high on poles, or other high places, and they represent strength and endurance as the carp can swim upstream even against a waterfall. Mr. Takahashi said there were kites flying all over Japan on that day (they are 15 hour ahead of us). He also sent a picture of the samurai display. My class made koinobori to celebrate the day. We didn't have the special rice cakes wrapped in bamboo or oak leaves. Instead we tried some miso soup and ate more rice. This time everyone got a set of bamboo chopsticks to keep! Thank goodness for the 100 yen store.