Oshogatsu

Today Miya's mom, Lisa Sugino came our class to tell us about Oshogatsu, the Japanese New Year celebration.   

We learned that the Japanese New Year falls on January 1st and has many traditions that have been practiced for hundreds of years.  We looked at a book that explained many of the Japanese New year symbols and traditions.

The daruma is a paper mache doll for making a wish for the new year.  You paint one eye when you make the wish, and the other eye if the wish comes true. 

Mrs. Sugino showed us a antique paddle that was used to play a game very similar to badminton. 

Another of the Oshogatsu traditions is making mochi.  To make the mochi, boiled sticky rice is put into a shallow wooden bucket-like container and patted with water by one person while another person hits it with a large wooden mallet. It forms a sticky dumpling. We had a lot of fun mashing the rice.

The picture below shows a very unique kind of mochi which is made specially for New Year called Kagami mochi.  It consists of 2 rice balls with a tangerine sitting on top.

We were able to eat some sweet mochi! 

Thank you Mrs. Sugino, we loved learning about Oshogatsu!

What did you enjoy the most in the Oshogatsu presentation?