Japan

We just finished up a five in a row unit on the book Grandfather's Journey.

We learned a lot about Japan. Riley and Cole were so interested in it that we ended up spending an extra week on it. They wanted to check out more books and dvds from the library, so of course we did.

For art we used oil pastels (thank you GAR!) to try to recreate one of the pictures in the book of the sun reflecting on the water.

We learned about origami and tried a few ourselves. They liked it so much that we ended up checking out a dvd with step-by-step instructions and making more. It was a lot of fun.

We read the book Yoko, about a Japanese cat who takes sushi to school for lunch and eventually gets a friend to try it. We had a special Japanese lunch. It was nothing new for my kids to eat sushi and edamame, but I taught them how to roll it themselves this time.

Ingredients from the Asian market.

Cole rolling sushi.

Garrett whippin' up some edamame.

Don't you love how savvy he is with the chopsticks?

Riley's thoughts...

After the meal Tyler remembered that he still had some Japanese candy his aunt had brought back from her trip. Perfection.

This unit had a lot of geography.

We learned about Tokyo, Mount Fuji, Japan's fishing industry, architecture, and much more. We even tried our hand at painting Japanese symbols. I'm glad I followed their lead and spent an extra week on it. It was well worth it!