If you don't give me candy, I'll play a trick on you!

Okashi wo kurenai to itazura suru yo!

(updated in response to a request for pictures)

Some English conversation schools for kids have full-on Halloween parties, large affairs with the participants in elaborate costumes. Me, I run a fake English school in which half the student population of two shares a good deal of DNA sequence with me. So it seemed fitting to have a half-assed Halloween party (but not until we went through the 18 alphabet flashcards and 30 vocabulary flashcards first). I bought some individually wrapped candy and cookies at the local supermarket, and witches' hats and Halloween decorations at the 100 yen store.

Then the Pumpkin Mommy, Daddy, Princess, Prince, and the neighbor girl took turns being the trick-or-treaters and the neighbor.

The Pumpkin Daddy was assigned the role of the neighbor who didn't celebrate Halloween, and got TP'd. When planning this "party," I'd considered having them TP the house for about 0.02 seconds before deciding against it. I mean, how are you supposed to explain the concept of TPing to a neighborhood of Japanese folks in their 60's and 70's?

When the Pumpkin Princess and the neighbor girl started turning Daddy into a Mummy, the Pumpkin Prince started crying "don't hurt Daddy!" so we had to stop.

I want a Power Rangers Samurai lunch!

Boku, Shinkenjaa bentou ga ii!

Ask and you shall receive...

Rice flavored with ketchup (Red Samurai Ranger) or curry powder, salt and sugar (Gold Samurai Ranger) and decorated with sliced cheese (the kind that's wrapped in plastic that you have to remember to take off when making grilled cheese sandwiches) and nori. I used a craft knife that I bought at the 100 yen-shop to cut the nori this time. The empty spaces were filled with leftover chicken nuggets, leftover broccoli, baby tomatoes, and frozen chicken patties. It's interesting that the Pumpkin Prince asked for this lunch because "Shinkenger" was something like three seasons ago and he probably has no memory of watching the show. But he does like to check YouTube videos on my iPad, and apparently there are a lot of Shinkenger clips because "Power Rangers Samurai" ("Shinkenger" action sequences spliced into original material filmed with English speaking actors) is being aired in the US right now. What I want to know is if they're going with the original Shinkenger ending because Power Rangers Samurai has gone far away from the original story to make that kind of hard to do.

Summer has past...

Natsu ha sugi... So we survived the first summer vacation with a shogakusei (elementary school student) with only minor trauma. Gakudoh (after school day care) was open every weekday, and they had a system where a local company took orders for boxed lunches. The Pumpkin Princess said she wanted me to make her lunch every so often, and I think I ended up sending her with lunch something like 6 or seven times, but I only took one picture.

Cousins came to visit Grandma, so we met them there. Brother-in-law brought his nagashi-somen kit.

As the name implies, what you're supposed to do is run water and somen over the bamboo and catch the some as it comes in front of you, and we did this, but then things got wild and b-i-l stared letting candy through it, and then...

grape juice.

Snail's Pace English School is still open for class. I think we're about halfway through the alphabet. It's too soon to tell if we're going anywhere at this, well, snail's pace.

We harvested.

Shuukaku shimashita.

The watermelon was tiny, and there was only one that was fully ripe, but the fact remains that we grew a watermelon in a container outside our dining area, and that it was just as sweet and juicy as any watermelon we have bought at the local supermarket.

This (is what we're doing) this year!

Kotoshi ha kore!
Does anyone remember last year's green curtain? And how were were up to our necks in goya (bitter gourds) that the kids didn't like?

I have learned from experience, and this year I went with something that the kids would eat.

That's right, I have watermelon vines growing in containers outside my dining area. They're small, and I'm probably only going to get four or five watermelons from two very large containers, but the cool factor of having watermelons growing in my yard is pretty much off the charts humongous. 

In other news...Snail's Pace English School now has a new student. Our neighbor's 9 year-old, whom the Pumpkin Princess idolizes, has joined in classes. I was having (somewhat expected) problems with getting the Pumpkin Princess to say stuff and carry conversations with me, so I recruited the 9 year-old. I've done one lesson without and two lessons with the new girl, and the difference was...well, me trying to force the Pumpkin Princess to do something she doesn't want to do, and a functional children's English class.

So there are now 4 students (the Pumpkin Princess, the new girl, the Pumpkin Prince, and the Pumpkin Daddy), which is pretty good for doing group stuff like games and practicing talking to each other. We'll see how it goes. Right now, my concern is that there might be two weeks in a row without classes because of my work and family stuff. I'm trying to think of a way to make up at least the second missed lesson without driving everyone crazy...

Can you read it?

Yomeru?

A Japanese first grader can write a letter by the end of May. Considering this is 2 months into  her first school year, this is an interesting situation. I don't think this holds true for American first graders.

The Japanese phonetic alphabet (hiragana or katakana) is a "what you see is what you get" alphabet. You read the name of the letter, and that's how that letter is pronounced (I understand Korean and Nepali are also like this). Not so in English. The name of the letter and its pronunciation are two different entities.

When I was in first grade, I remember my teacher, Mrs. Carter, doing phonics flashcards with us. The first graders would happily shout "ah! aaaaaay!" "ih! aaaaai!" "yuh! ih! aaaaaai!" as she flashed cards labeled "A," "I," or "Y."

Then we moved, and we went to a different school in a different state. This school did not do much by way of phonics. The kids were taught to read by recognizing short words.

I have started to try to teach the Pumpkin Princess English. I found a text I thought I liked, and I got the textbook and workbook and teacher's book, but it didn't make sense to me until last night, when I figured out that the Pumpkin Princess

WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO LEARN THE NAMES OF THE LETTERS UNTIL SHE HAS MASTERED THEIR PRONUNCIATION!

Apparently this is how they currently teach reading to children in the UK and Australia these days. It's called synthetic phonics, and when you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense, and it's probably easier (if time consuming) to both children and teachers.

So I have the textbook, workbook, and the teacher's book.

But I am too cheap to pay 7000 yen for the set of flashcards.

Too much stuff!

Mono ga oosugi!
Every day, the Pumpkin Princess takes these things to school.

textbooks (subjects for the day must be checked and appropriate schoolbooks taken)
notebooks (see above)
pencil case (with pencils, red colored pencil, eraser, ruler, and black marker)
homework (something every day)
reading card (must read passages from Japanese textbook, signed off by parent)
chopsticks
napkin/ place mat
lunch bag (drawstring bag containing above chopsticks and napkin)
handkerchief
pocket kleenex

Every Friday, the Pumpkin Princess brings home stuff that needs laundering/ tweaking/ checking. Off the top of my head:

P.E. uniform (T-shirt, shorts and cap)
P.E. uniform bag (drawstring bag)
school shoes (white canvas slip-ons that she wears inside the school building)
school shoe bag (drawstring bag)
toothbrush
drinking cup (for brushing teeth)
lunch duty uniform (white coat and white hair cover cap. The kids have lunch duty every other week for the whole week. They fetch the buckets of school lunch, serve each other, and clean up)

The thing is, the Pumpkin Princess walks to and from school. And she is six. So on Fridays, she's carrying all this stuff home by herself. And all this probably weighs as much as she does. Doesn't this affect their skeletal growth or something?