Japan, Part I

This year in history the boys and I are studying various countries and cultures of the world. We are currently learning about Japan. One word that describes both my boys is "BUSY". You could add the word "very" to the front of that, and "all the time" right after it, but that would be five whole words, and we don't sit still for five whole words. We're on the move. The boys are 8 and 10 now, so their patience really is growing, but I still find that active participation is their preferred learning style. So, we sit and read. But then we get up and do stuff. We build, make, draw, create...whatever. Just so long as we're moving. You know. It's a B.O.Y. thing. Lucky for me, this history study lends itself quite well to hands on projects. For each country that we "visit", we try to throw in a few crafts and/or recipes just to make it fun and attach a memory to what we've learned.

Yesterday, the boys wrote Haiku poems. The first one was about springtime. I chose the topic, since I had veto power over their original suggestion, which I can't remember now, but was something I deemed not "cute" enough for this assignment.

Springtime

Bright green leaves budding

Butterflies float everywhere

Flowers bloom, birds chirp

A Haiku, in simple form, has five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun they had with this, so they wrote a few more.

Baby Emma

She is our sister

Cute, lovable, pretty, sweet

Best baby ever

Then, Hayden wanted to do one about his beloved Guinea Pig, Daffodil. Hayden is nuts for guinea pigs. I mean nuts as in he wears his "I Love Guinea Pigs" tee shirt to bed almost every single night.

Daffodil

Big and furry pig

Eats carrots and celery

I love guinea pigs

That last line was inspired by his favorite shirt. :) Today I had hoped to do an outside project with them, but the weather did not cooperate, so I improvised and drew big carp for them to paint. I don't break out the messy supplies too often, so this was a treat. In Japan, carp are considered strong and brave because they swim upstream. They really spent a lot of time painting carefully and the fish turned out great!

I read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes to them while they worked. Yes, I cried. I always do at that book. (I tried to link to Amazon, but linking is apparently not a beginning blogger's skill. I'll work on that.) Anyway, we folded paper cranes after the story, but I had to do most of the work on that one. Origami is not a B.O.Y. skill. Crumpling is.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will get to do our outside project. We're doing a few additional crafts for Japan because I couldn't' find a recipe to try that was appealing to me. I'm not a fan of sushi because I like my food.....cooked.