Japan

I want the kids to learn a little bit about the world and geography. I have always been fascinated by Asian cultures and architecture. When I was young (about 8) I picked up a chinese magazine (The Friend, from the distribution center), and decided I would learn Chinese. Turns out that isn't an easy thing to do. :) I was still interested in languages when I got to college and since Chinese didn't work in my schedule, decided on a whim to take Japanese. I only took a semester and don't remember much, except the first word that our professor taught us 'ano' which was the equivalent of um, so we could stall.  I had an outside influence that caused me to take portuguese instead.

We were given these Japanese strawberry danishes.  They looked quite beautiful, but only Ethan actually liked to eat them.  I showed the kids the packaging and what the written language looked like.

We learned about the flag of Japan

We also learned about volcanoes.  Did you know that Japan has about 200 volcanoes, 60 of which are active?  That night we got to go the Hollywood Bowl to see the orchestra perform pieces from Fantasia.  The kids were excited to clip from the Creation scene showing all the volcanoes erupting.

We love going to the Japanese Gardens to feed the Koi.  We did some fish stamping to make thank you notes for our swim teachers.

James got the kids a small piece of dry ice.  They thought it was another volcano and had so much fun learning and playing with Dad.

I'm looking at our books and realizing I didn't take any pictures of our origami.  We did some simple things, like gliders and boats.

Books

Brielle is pointing to her favorite book of the week, Maneki Neko.  The kids also liked The Magic Fan