Learning about Japan

 Last week was a little different for us because we had a field trip planned for Thursday.  I knew that the kids would be learning about Japan at the field trip, so I thought we would do activities about Japan at home.  We started with Allen Say's book "Grandfather's Journey".  This book has beautiful illustrations and tells the story of a man who travels from Japan to America and sees the land, meets people, but becomes homesick and travels back.  The story continues through a couple of generations in this man's family.  The first day we read the story we just did a color sheet I found here of traditional Japanese dress.  The second day we put star stickers on the places that grandfather traveled in the story.

 The third day I found an idea on doing a poster on landforms here.  The lesson suggests using different types of materials to do the poster, like cardboard, foil, etc.  I wanted to do that, but I just ran out of time (plus I was a little tired) to gather the materials.  Instead I just drew out the landforms with a permanent marker as best I could and let the kids get their watercolors out and paint.  It turned out great!  Now it's hanging in our school area and the kids can look at it in the future when we talk about landforms.

 Thursday we had our field trip at the Georgia Children's Museum in Macon.  It was so neat!  They had so many fun things for the kids to do on their own...playing with plastic fruits and vegetables, lots of dress up things, bubbles, blocks, and more.  Our guide gave us an informative powerpoint presentation on Japan.  He also taught the kids the "rock, paper, scissors" game in Japanese, and read them a story that takes place in Japan.

 Some of the kids playing the game.

 Then another guide taught the kids about the Japanese tea ceremony.  The kids got to taste some green tea.  It was neat.

The last part of the field trip was craft time.  The kids were able to draw and paint cherry blossom trees and Japanese caligraphy.  Overall, I would say this was a great field trip! 

Some other neat things you could do with Japan and "Grandfather's Journey" that I didn't get a chance to do are:

*A study on family trees and make your own family tree

*Talk about birds (the grandfather likes songbirds) and do some bird watching (here is a link to a free printable bird pack...with games, handwriting exercises, math activities, etc...all birds and very cute!)

*Cook some Japanese sweets (here is a link to some recipes)
*Make some origami (a link to some easy origami ideas)

We really enjoyed our week!  Next week I won't be planning a theme because I will be having surgery on Wednesday.  Please keep me in your prayers...that the surgery will go smoothly, that I won't have any complications, and that the months to come will go well.  I have to say, even in the midst of hardship God has been SO GOOD to us!  I am so grateful for His special care and provision in so many ways.  Our family...and church family...have ministered to us and helped us throughout this year.  We have been blessed.
May God bless you in the coming days!
~Stacey~