Week 1: Japan!

This week we started up our adventure around the world.  I made the decision to learn about Japan this week based on a very important fact.  I was craving sushi :-)  So, Sunday night, after the girls were in bed, I sat at the computer and searched our local library's database of books.  I made my list of books I wanted to check out and requested copies of the movies that had been suggested in the article How Every Child Can Grow Up Global. 

After our play date at the park and a quick lunch on Monday morning we headed to the library armed with our book list.  It's certainly not easy searching for books while keeping an eye on a three year old and trying to keep an 18 month old happy in her stroller.  I was glad that I had a list, so I didn't need to spend time using the computer at the library to find books.  We are very lucky to have a very wonderful library with an excellent children's section that has a supply of puzzles and toys in addition to kid-friendly racks of books.  MonkeyD played and chose books on her own while I tried to find the ones that I had looked up.  A friend of ours happened to be hanging out with her daughter at the library that day and when I told her we were looking for books about Japan she recommended and located a board book for us about sushi.  Lil' Pistol doesn't have much of an interest in books yet, aside from opening and closing them, but it was nice to have one her size and sturdy!  She would have appreciated books with pictures of dogs, ducks or Elmo.

Monday night we had dinner with friends at a local restaurant that has Monday night sushi specials.  We brought along our First Book of Sushi board book and MonkeyD pointed out the sushi roll that she wanted to try to the waiter.  The waiter liked our sushi book too :-).  When her roll arrived I was proud of her as she took a bite without hesitating, but she decided she didn't like it.  That's ok, we told her that it's good that she tried something new.  She mostly liked the pot-stickers and trying out her chop sticks.  Lil' Pistol enjoyed one of the sushi rolls and both girls ate lots of edamame, which they are familiar with since we eat it at home frequently.  MonkeyD insisted that they were magic beans. 

MonkeyD loves having books read to her, so during her sister's nap and before bedtime we usually read quite a few books.  I had picked out a few non-fiction books that I thought would hold her interest, but I was wrong!  She and I glanced through some of the pictures in those books and we made note of the map of Japan.  We observed that it is made up of lots of islands (which, since she is only 3, I emphasized that that means there is water all around Japan).  We also talked about the mountains there and in particular Mount Fuji.  These were easy things to remember about Japan because they appear in most of the books and movies that we looked at, so we could re-emphasize it.  Some of that discussion must have sunk into MonkeyD because I heard her talking about Fuji Yama while she was playing. 

I do recommend one of the non-fiction books that we read though.  My Japan, by Etsuko Watanabe was interactive enough that it captured MonkeyD's attention.  Each page had a picture of a room in a Japanese home or school and the facing page had larger pictures of things found in that room.  So we talked about each of those items, whether or not it was like something that we have, and then found it in the larger picture.  A few of the pages at the end of the book describe some of the holidays observed in Japan.  There are directions for some simple paper crafts included as well.  We made a paper lantern, a streamer and a paper chain together. 

We read quite a few Japanese folktales.  We ones we enjoyed the most were, The Crane Wife, by Sumiko Yagawa, The Bamboo Cutter & the Moon Maiden by Teresa Peirce Williston, Jojofu by Michael P. Waite, The Loyal Cat by Lensey Namioka and also a story called Kamishibai Man by Allen say.  Some of the folktales are slightly darker than the stories that we are used to, but maybe it only seemed like that because I hadn't heard the stories before. 

  

We also borrowed two movies from the library, My Neighbor Totoroand Ponyo.  We loved both of these movies.  We watched My Neighbor Totoro first, during Lil' Pistol's naptime and another day we watched Ponyo as a special stay-up-later-than-little-sister-eating-popcorn movie.  :-)  MonkeyD was a little frightened during parts of each movie, so she was glad to be snuggling next to us.  She pointed out to me that the characters took their shoes off and put their slippers on at the beginning of school, as was mentioned in a book we had read.  We also noticed the rainy weather in My Neighbor Totoro, and the mountains and sea in Ponyo. 

There were two websites that we used, Time for Kids and Kids Web Japan.  Kids Web Japan had some fun games that we played together. 

At the end of the week we made a family visit to University of Illinois Champaign's  Japan House garden.  There had been tea ceremonies and house tours on Thursday, but we hadn't made reservations and I wasn't feeling up to going out that day.  But, we really enjoyed our short walk through the garden and decided we will definitely have to visit in the spring when the cherry trees are blossoming.  There was a poster announcing that a Japanese traditional music concert the next night, it would have been fun if we could have worked it into our schedule, but that didn't work out for us. 

After our visit to the Japanese garden, we stopped at our local Korean market (if you're in Champaign, check out The Green Onion) to pick up some Japanese desserts.   Of course, we left the store with much more than just some desserts, but we went into a grocery store hungry, so what would one expect?  We also bought each of the girls a little pair of Training Chopsticks for Children.  MonkeyD tried hers out with both her watermelon and later her udon noodles and I was so impressed with how easily she could manage!  She wants to eat everything with her chopsticks now :-)  After dinner we enjoyed our Japanese desserts - mochi ryoka (rice cake with bean jam).

At the end of the week I got around to putting together a map so that we could have another visual for the places that we learn about.  I probably should have started out with this, but I hadn't gotten it yet.  I picked up a simple map at the Dollar Tree and glued it to some cardboard to make it sturdier.  Then I highlighted our home state in one color and the states that our family lives in with another color.  Then with MonkeyD's help, we made a sticker with some foam stickers that said Japan.  We placed the Japan sticker and a sticker of the Japanese flag next to Japan.  We placed a colorful star sticker over the black dot that showed where Tokyo is.  We put a small picture of a house on our home state and heart stickers on the states where our grandparents, aunts and uncles live.  We put a US flag near the US.  Then, to emphasise where the water was versus the land, and because stickers are fun, MonkeyD placed some various fish stickers in the oceans.