Roadschooling and Organic Alternatives
We stayed 2 nights with Toyoma, one of only 3 organic farmers, that can produce tomatoes also during winter in Japan. A Hippie farmer, he called himself, as only 0.16% of all farmers produce organic food in Japan. On top he lives on a farm, a few meters away from a well known surfer beach, Ikumi beach, where every other year the world’s champion surfers are being selected and celebrated. Surrounded by rugged coastline, beautiful beaches and lush green islands this can be a dream life for quiet a few, that wish themselves away from busy city life. In fact, he had consciously made his choice more than a decade ago, when he left his stressful office job, cycled for a year in Latin America and then went to Shikoku to create an alternative life for himself, as organic farmer.
The children loved it, as they could help peeling the organic garlic and savor the delicious fresh tomatoes. What a coincidence, that Amaya’s K1 class back in Singapore is currently covering farming and animals:-)
Besides, we were lucky enough to have crashed into this spacious Japanese house on an extremely rainy and stormy day. So roadshooling and edutainment was on the list – indoors for a change. We had discussed shapes during the last few days and had drawn lines, circles, squares, triangles, even octagons etc into the sand in various sizes and checked on the possibilities to divide them into new and more shapes (thanks again to PMI for teaching me maths for preschoolers on the road!). Now creative cutting and pasting with shapes from advertisement pages of magazines was on the list. One picture of a solar system made even the basis for one of the art works to form the walls of Amaya’s and Tayanika’s preschool (kindergarten). Piano playing came next. Some writing exercise and story reading.
During nap time, I cycled for food shopping 7 km away, and was nearly blown of the road while crossing a bridge from a fast whirling truck. And was pretty soaked despite the fully covered rain gear. So good, we could stay a 2nd night!
More pictures can be found on our gallery