Japan in 4th Grade

Welcome to Japan! 

This winter was we had Around the World Day at our school.  After reading, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes it was an easy choice of what country the students wanted to learn about. Here is a link but please read to enjoy the activities! :) 

 http://get-puppet.com/s/yi80-UeVLIk?autoplay

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sadako_and_the_thousand_paper_cranes_00.jpg

We started out by decorating our own Kimonos as we learned about the traditional dress of the Japanese.  In the story Sadako receives a Kimono from her mother as a gift while in the hospital, it was a good connection to the story for the kids. 

The Japanese fan was our next creation!  After watching a beautiful fan dance of a women in her kimono we started making fans. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NJhVZtNFDw I used decorative Japanese style card stock on one side and the other side was up to the kids to decorate.  They loved coming up with their design, many kids asked if they could look up images online. This happened to be the day and time my principal popped in with our state representative and a couple other adults!  Always fun!  

After spending some time shopping around different craft stores I came up with a few more ideas.  One was the Japanese Cherry Blossom. I brought one into the classroom from the craft store to hang in our room.  Thank goodness my mom was there to help me organize this painting project.  We went step by step....first the kids had brown to paint the branch then each student was given red and white and they made their own hue of pink. They practiced on the newspaper first! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9spHPYOl4c

We tried to do a little something everyday for two weeks.   The dolls and blossoms were more time consuming projects than others, but I tied to do something little each day. Daily the kids came in wondering what we were going to add to our portfolio page of Japan.

First we learned where Japan was geographically.  We colored the map and labeled the capital, Tokyo and city, Hiroshima. In the story we read it took place in Hiroshima where the main problem arises due to the historical bombs being dropped.

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Then I gave each of them a flag make out of card stock and red sticky dots. We added the flag to the portfolio and wrote what it resembles.  The red circle represents the red sun and the white resembles the white fields. 

                                         

The currency of Japan is Yen, I printed it in color, glued and labeled onto the portfolio sheets. 

 

The Great Wave was next.  We labeled the famous painting: "The Great Wave off Kanagawa."  Then we talked about and labeled the important symbolization in this famous painting to Japan.  Mt. Fuji, the boats with people that are used to transport the fish within the heavy waves that are about to break.

After studying the painting this naturally took us to Tsunamis in Japan.  This man-made utube caused some good conversations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8IAgUNr6x4

Next we learned how to write numbers in Japanese

and how to make Organmi by folding special paper to make a paper cup.

Our last exciting moment was having our own feast.  I had a parent come in and she explained all of the different traditions as well as mannerisms of how Japanese eat properly.  Starting out with the tea, someone else must pour yours first.  Then we tried teriyaki chicken and sushi.  Each child had there own set up chopsticks and some slightly picked it up, some tried real hard and others just were not there yet.  It was a fun day of learning about another culture.  

 Check this out the video made with the app 'Puppet'  to see more pictures of the kids in the classroom! 

http://get-puppet.com/s/yi80-UeVLIk?autoplay