It is almost Halloween, so this week has seem some very spookey classes! The children have been learning about ghosts and goblins and other gruesom Halloween words.
As a Halloween creepy craft, the children prepared Marshmallow Frankensteins. They dipped marshmallows in green food colouring, then used melted chocolate to make the hair and mouth, and stuck candy eyes on using the chocolate. It was then finished off with some pretzel bolts.
This year has seen many former staff come back to visit Zenrinkan, including the Lammers family.It is 60 years this year since they first set foot in Japan, so they came back to Japan to celebrate. The Lammers came to Japan as missionaries and worked at the old Zenrinkan for many years as language teachers.It is wonderful to see so many familiar faces coming through the Zenrinkan doors.
Today we had the annual summer party. As always, there was a bazaar and flea market, as well as various snacks for sale made by the Zenrinkan staff.This year's International Lunch was as high a standard as always and all the guests had their fill of food from England, America, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Korea, China, Colombia, Mexico and more besides.Sadly, everyone was too busy eating and serving to take any pictures, so the whole day went by without a single snap!Being the same day as the Hachimangu festival, we were a little worried there would be a lack of guests, but in the end it turned out to be a record turn out and a wonderfully successful day.
Today the sign language circle visited a place called "Ikiiki Bokujou" on the outskirts of Morioka. It is a community for people with various mental and physical problems. About 50 people live there and they do simple work such as growing vegetables, sewing, newspaper folding and packing and so on. They also grow a herb garden and enjoy many events and activities throughout the year. They are roughly divided into three groups; people with very light problems who are capable of organising themselves and lead fairly normal working lives on the farm or in the library, then there is the group who can work, but need a fair amount of supervision, then finally the group who have very severe problems.The idea of the project is that it allows them to lead as close as possible to normal lives so they keep their brains and bodies active and use them to their full potential. They all live on site and work together to make a friendly and happy community.We had a chance to talk to some of the people who were doing sewing. Everyone seemed so content in their work and they took as much time as they wanted to do whatever they were interested in doing. One lady was making a really beautiful cross-stitch cushion. It was certainly better than I could ever do!If you ever have the chance, they are amazing people to meet.Ikiiki blog (Japanese only)
This month we had a special request to learn how to make Quiche. So today we made a "Broccoli and Sausage Flan". Flan is the English name for the French quiche. This takes a really long time to cook in the oven though, so while we were waiting we made an old English favourite, "Sausage rolls".
Due to last night's earthquake, numbers were down a little, so we ended up with quite a lot to take home as well, so everyone enjoyed eating together and got to take something back for their families.
In August we made Eve's pudding. The dish is like a sponge cake with apples baked into it. The name comes from Eve in the Bible who couldn't resist the lovely sweet apples. This time we made it with the traditional apple, but we can prepare it with many different types of fruit. Of course we prepared a custard sauce to go on top.
In September we made chicken crumble. This is a savoury version of the sweet dish that is famous across England and America. The base is a chicken and vegetable stew and then it is topped with breadcrumbs, oats and cheese and baked in the oven. 
In October we tried our hands at two dishes. We made the sweet crumble that August's cooking is based on. It is traditionally made with apples or peaches, but we also tried a pear one this time and everyone could have a bite of three flavours. While it was baking in the oven, we made a sponge pudding. This normally takes several hours to steam, so this time we cheated and made a microwave version that cooks in 4 minutes! Again, as well as the traditional raisin and cherry versions, we also prepared a chocolate one. We then made a vanilla sauce to top it off.
Due to last night's earthquake, numbers were down a little, so we ended up with quite a lot to take home as well, so everyone enjoyed eating together and got to take something back for their families.
Alicia F had a Casino Night where the students could learn some words about poker and try playing (with fake money of course!).
Michiko helped people prepare a simple Aroma Therapy product using natural herbs and oils.
Gladys taught people a very energetic Latin dance which was almost like aerobics. Some very sweaty people came out of her corner!
Miura-sensei helped people write their tanabata wish using calligraphy brushes and ink. There was also a chance to write a Chinese character on a stone to take home.
Alicia S showed people all about American high school life in a photo presentation and discussion. Everyone was surprised how different it was to Japanese high schools.
In the hallway, Nicola taught an English traditional dance called Morris Dancing. As it involves hitting sticks together with your partner it was popular with the kids!
Rudy helped people make a bracelet that is popular in his state.
After everyone had tried their hand at the different activities, there were two quizzes - Chinese and English. In the Chinese quiz everyone guessed the meaning of Chinese words related to the Olympics using the sound and characters. Then the English quiz had two teams compete in front of everyone. Maybe the most entertaining part was the "picture relay" when four out of five members were shown a word and given 10 seconds per person to complete a picture of the word and then show it to the last member of their group who guessed what the picture should be.
