Kids Web Japan

Making sakura-mochi with leaves from the school's cherry trees

At Shinanodai Elementary, great priority is given to learning about food. In 2001 the government designated Shinanodai as a model school for education relating to food, and the school continues to teach in its own unique way. Growing rice and vegetables is the main part of the school's food-related classes, but the students also make the crockery they use, learn how to cook things without damaging the environment, and study the foods they eat at home. Nutritionist Sugita Yukiko, who works at Shinanodai Elementary, not only thinks up the menus for school lunches but also teaches the students how to use stoves and not to waste water during home economics and lifestyle classes, as well as about the nutritional value of snacks and drinks.

Sweets eaten during class time taste great!

Making Sakura-mochi

The third graders are having a go at making sweets. In the spring, they collect leaves from sakura (cherry) trees and pickle them with salt for several months. Then, when autumn comes, they use the leaves and mochi rice powder to make sakura-mochi (rice cakes wrapped in cherry-tree leaves). The powder is steamed to make mochi dough, which is stretched out like a blanket and then lightly folded to form rice cakes filled with sweet red-bean paste and wrapped in the leaves. Japanese sweets like these are low in calories and enable people to feel the change of seasons.

Yamauchi Yuya (left) and Seiya (right)

Yamauchi Yuya and Seiya (third grade)

There are two sets of twins in the third-grade class. The Yamauchi twins are in different groups within their class, but both made sakura-mochi. At home the boys have different chores. Yuya helps with the cooking and sets the table, while Seiya does the cleaning. Yuya says, "Our Mom sometimes mistakes one of us for the other, but our classmates don't."

Other food-related activities include a summer holiday diary, in which the students write down what they ate at home each day, parent-child cooking classes, and making soba (buckwheat) noodles. The school calendar is put together so that the students in every grade get to study food.