Pre-Kindergarten 2021/22/23: Pre-KG 2023 / 24 Blog 32 Taste, scent and Mother‘s Day!

Pre-KG 2023 / 24 Blog 32

Taste, scent and Mother‘s Day!

When using our body, we naturally use our senses.

Recently two senses have been added to the list, but the five basic human senses are: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste.

In their journey of learning about the body, this week the Pre–Kindergarten children concentrated on discovering more about taste and smell.

Role play enables the children to make sense of the world around them and they often imitate what they see in their environment, so our last unit about food, encouraged the children even more to play in our kitchen and they joyfully create a variety of dishes every day.

Their is no limit to their creativity and many conversations could be heard about how food is prepared and what is cooked at home.

Some of the children‘s families travelled during Golden Week and our class was the lucky and grateful recipient of delicious omiyage ( souvenirs). What a wonderful way to start our experience of different tastes this week!

Hm, sweet and crunchy flavors! Gochisama deshita !

I encouraged the children to have a look at their snack boxes together and we discovered that they were full of fruit and healthy snacks which means plenty of nutrients and vitamins.

What a great way to teach the children about important food items for their health! Thank you parents and grandparents!

We also added two cooking experiences this week!

First we made Peach Fruche, which is a good summer treat and you can even freeze it to make sorbet. The packages are available in a variety of flavors in any Japanese supermarket and you just need to add milk, stir and voila, you have a nice pudding.

I set up the area in front of our school kitchen with all the necessary ingredients as well as bowls, whisks, ladles and aprons. Even though this is an easy recipe, the children were very proud of making their own dessert. The eagerly smelled the scent of peach, poured milk, whisked and stirred while taking turns and then ate their Fruche with gusto. Good job, everyone!

As the experience of cooking together at this age is just as important as the result we had a second cooking session this week. After all the sweet things, we opted for savory food.

From an appropriate distance the Pre–Kindergärten children watched Mr. Lubin boil the noodles in the kitchen, learning that boiling turns them from hard to soft.

After adding Hayashi sauce, every child had a turn in stirring and then we brought the big bowl to the classroom. How excited the children were to eat the food they had just made together! „We made pasta“ they told the other teachers and friends and then keenly ate even a second serving ! Zusammen mit Freunden schmeckt eben alles besser !

Everyone agreed that our sauce really smelled good !

So throughout the week we not only kept our taste buds happy, but also discovered many enticing scents like lavender and citrus aromatherapy from Germany!

Moreover, fruits smell sweet and so do flowers!

During outside discovery time we twice visited the Rose Walk on Rokko Island which boasts a stunning array of roses in all kind of colours. The children admired them and loved the sweet scent – some of the roses even smelled like honey. What an enriching experience!

The children also had the opportunity to discover other scents like rosemary or clover.

Flowers do not only have a beautiful scent, they are also symbols for love and appreciation !

This week was therefore the perfect opportunity to make flowers for the upcoming Mother‘s Day on Sunday.

Mothers are the heart of the family and often the first word a child says is „Mama“ ( or Papa) .

The Pre–Kindergarten chose their favourite colour paper and patiently crafted a cute flower. They also made a Mother‘s Day card with a special drawing of mum and themselves!

The thoughtful presents will surely touch your hearts !