Sweet Potatoes & Snow

After a ranging typhoon yesterday and months of temperatures in the 70s we awoke to autumn this morning. Bam, FALL overnight! There was a chill in the air and snow on Mt. Iwate.

Keeping with the autumn theme of the day, I joined FIK’s sweet potato dig as a parent helper. FIK has a small garden for the kids on the edge of the playground. They hand out cherry tomatoes and basil from the garden episodically, but today it was time to pull out the sweet potatoes. It was very cute watching the kids dig sweet potatoes by hand. They were so proud every time they found one!

FIK ready to dig!!!!

Anna had Catie firmly in hand while waiting their turn to dig. Everyone was wearing their blue art smocks in an attempt to minimize the dirt on their uniforms. I have no idea what the deal with the yellow hats is. I think children are not allowed outside at any Japanese preschool without the appropriate hat.

First they pulled off all the vines (parent helpers got to bag the vines)

Then they dug in!

Each child was photographed when they found a potato. Catie was the first student in the Bunny group to find one. After she pulled out a 2nd potato, she was sent to the playground to give her classmates a chance to find theirs. I guess all that practice at home paid off!

Sweet Potatoes! They will let them rest a bit and then the school will have a sweet potato roast & lunch in a couple of weeks.

The kids worked off their excitement in the playground before heading back into school for lunch. Then the parent helpers had our turn digging. The 3 of us probably pulled out as many potatoes as the entire class, but I think they had more fun :-)