From the lakes of Hokkaido....

These are the two new additions to my class. They are called marimos in Japanese. Basically, they are balls of green algae that grow only in the lakes of Hokkaido. But they are cute, low maintenence and who could resist something with a name as cute as "marimo"? :) In total I have 4 marimos. The first two I got a year ago from some of my students.

They are twins and their names are Nori and Bobo. I have come to believe that marimos make the best class pets!I keep these two upstairs in my classroom. My students love them! Every class, students will come in and before they even have a chance to say hello to me they ask, "Marimo wa?" translation-"Where are the marimos?" It really seems like they are living animals. But alas, only green balls of algae. These two new ones don't have names yet, but that will come soon.