Another Asian Adventure

We just completed our study of Japan, as we work our way through Asia in Galloping the Globe. The kids learned the meaning of the word "archipelago" and added it to their geography notebooks. They learned that Japan consists of 6,852 islands and contains 108 active volcanoes. The red dot on the flag symbolizes the sun.

In addition, I found a wonderful site called Kids Web Japan, which has illustrations, articles, and games about Japanese culture, all geared towards kids. We read a few Japanese folk tales and learned about Japanese houses and meals, sumo wrestling, origami, bonsai, kimonos, and bento boxes.

Last week, we made an Americanized version of a Japanese meal for dinner. I made a large pot of Ramen noodles in beef broth and served them with matchstick carrots, shredded napa cabbage, and sugar snap peas to mix into the soup. At the beginning of the meal, the kids said, "Itadakimasu (I receive this food)," and at the end, they exclaimed, "Gochito sama deshita (It was quite a feast)!"

Today, as we wrap up our study of Japan and move on to India, I surprised the kids with homemade bento lunches. They loved them and ate every bite, even Becca who normally doesn't eat raw peppers or cabbage!

Contents: Egg yolk and cheddar cheese sun, egg white clouds, bread land, grape and cheddar cheese flower, shredded mozzarella dandelion, green pepper leaf and stems, and napa cabbage grass.

We enjoyed learning more about Japan, and we look forward to "galloping" the rest of the way around the world as well. What a fun way to learn about geography!

Fun With Paint

After postponing the mess for a few too many days, I finally pushed up my sleeves, stripped the kids, and tackled the painting portion of the globe project.

I put the paper mache ball in a basin to keep it from rolling away across our beige carpet as Hannah gobbed on the blue paint. I also gave Ben a sheet of paper to paint so he would not feel left out.

Then, I had a brilliant idea! Ben had studied the color blue (which was the color paint we were using) and the letter "b" this week in preschool, and I had an idea for a project that would incorporate both concepts. I decided also to teach the kids the concept of symmetry.

First, we used a couple of practice pages to learn how to paint on only one half of the paper and then fold the paper in half to create the same pattern on the other side. Next, I folded a piece of paper in half and cut it into the shape of butterfly wings ("b" is for butterfly...). Ben painted a pattern on one wing, and we folded it in half to make the matching wing. We talked about symmetry and how a butterfly has two matching wings that are the same on each side.

When we finished that portion of the lesson, Ben spent the rest of the time just painting a page solid blue. Meanwhile, Hannah worked hard and covered her globe with blue paint.

Once the paint on both projects dried, we moved on to the finishing touches. I helped Ben glue the center of the butterfly wings to his solid blue page. Then, we attached a popsicle stick, colored it brown, and drew a face and antennae to complete Ben's blue, symmetrical butterfly.For the globe, I cut out the shape of North America from craft foam, and we glued it to the globe. We will be using straight pins and little paper strips to label all of the places we discuss, and we will add the rest of the continents as we learn about them in future units.
I am excited by how well both crafts turned out. Maybe I will be a little braver about tackling more fun and messy projects in the future!