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unschooling
Yesterday we watched My Neighbor Totoro, the Japanese version. It is a cute little movie about two little girls that move to the country when their mom is in the hospital, and they meet the lord of the forest, a huge furry creature that lives in a giant tree, whose name is Totoro. The movie shows many aspects of Japanese country life such as the family baths, motorcycle trucks, treatment of the elderly (calling all older women Grandmother), the paper walls and furniture of the house, and aspects of the Shinto religion.
Annie became fascinated with Japanese and we downloaded a podcast via iTunes from Japanese101 that taught various phrases for mealtimes and the appropriate times to use them. Before they eat, Japanese people say a simple phrase that means 'to recieve' or something similar. Then we found a website for kids that had a neat video of the tea ceremony and drumming, and clip from a television show with kids making sushi balls. Then we just had to make sushi balls.
I don't have sushi rice so I just made regular rice with a little more water, we had some smoked salmon, and we cut up veggies like red peppers and cucumbers and carrots and the girls used wax paper to smash the rice into a ball, decorate it with vegetables and then smash it again to make it stick. It was very fun (and healthy too!)
Coming Next Year!
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