Pre-KG Blog 20 SETSUBUN GOBLINS and a variety of friendly DOGS

Pre-KG Blog 20  05.Feb.2021

SETSUBUN GOBLINS and  

a variety of friendly DOGS

This week, together with the rest of Japan, the Pre-KG class celebrated SETSUBUN !

Setsubun is considered an important festival in Japan and it is celebrated the day before the first day of spring (usually on February 3rd). Many people gather at temples or shrines and throw roasted soybeans (mame) at “oni“ (goblins, demons or ogres) to get rid of bad luck and invite “fuku" (good luck). Families may also celebrate by throwing roasted soybeans outside the door of their house or even chase a family member dressed up like an oni! 

Everyone then prays for good luck and health!

The Pre-KG children got right into the spirit, created their own colourful oni mask and sang along to the Setsubun song. 

As we could not celebrate by throwing beans at our resident oni this year due to Corona restrictions, the children all had fun throwing small bags of beans at our dressed up scarecrow!

As for the DOGS, we are lucky to have our school situated on Rokko Island where we can meet a lot of dogs on our walks.

This week first we were rewarded with the sight of different dogs when visiting the nearby dog run.

During our current unit the Pre-KG children learn a lot about farm animals and they can all say “dog” in English, so when they started to comment on sizes and colours, the next challenge was to identify those breeds we saw. 

A big thank you goes to the owners of “Beth and Meg” who let us look at their labradors. 

No, we didn’t touch the dogs, but we said hello. 

We further spotted poodles, a dachshund ("Dackel" in German) and a type of giant schnauzer. The children witnessed also, to their very big surprise, that the dogs ate grass. So this was added to the food a dog can eat!

Then on a different day, we met more friendly dogs with their  kind owners. 

Back at school we talked about these dogs and our dog figurines, including a Dalmatian that is very popular with the children.

The Pre-KG children then chose images of different species off the internet, which were printed and laminated by the teacher and the children matched them to the class figurines and pictures in books. 

They also reviewed the new vocabulary.

So please don’t be surprised when your child comes up with some more specific vocabulary than the good old “doggie”.

Great research into the variety of species, Pre-KG!