Japanese Night

Japanese Night was a huge success. Everyone had a great time seeing what the kids have been working on for the past month and trying some new foods. It was fun watching Great Grandma try sushi for the first time. She said that she liked it. The kids both told me this morning that they had so much fun last night. I think they enjoyed being the center of attention and showing off all the things they had learned. If I could just get them to remember the phrase "constitutional monarchy" things would be perfect. For some reason those words have no resonance to an 8 and 6 year old. Go figure!

After hours of unsuccessfully trying to burn our kabuki play onto a cd, I've finally given up and just uploaded it to YouTube. You can watch the short here. At dinner last night they handed out a program that went with the play explaining the true story of the 47 ronin and the differences between a real kabuki performance and their adaptation.

We also had a table full of all the art projects they worked on for the unit including kabuki warrior masks, clay dishes, origami swans, good luck eggs, and their book of haiku. They were able to show everyone their PowerPoint presentations on samurai and Tokyo as well. It really was great to be able to share some of our knowledge and let the family know how hard they've been working.

Tomorrow we hit the pre-made curriculum. I've spent all morning getting that together and into the lesson plan. We'll be starting with magnetism and electricity and reading Ben and Me for science and literature. Piano lessons also start back this week. I have a feeling it's going to be very busy this week, and there will certainly be some adjustment crankiness from all of us. On top of all that I'm taking Taekwondo lessons 3 times a week, and Tom's family is coming into town Friday for a camping weekend in our yard. Yikes!

Our "week off"

Despite the fact that we don't have classes this week, things have been very busy. In addition to Zoë having art and PE yesterday, we also spent all of the time in between working on art projects. Both Aiden and Zoë completed the math challenge problem, and today we visited the art museum. We were all sadly disappointed with the complete lack of art from Japan. They had two small rooms that were supposed to be dedicated to Japan, but several of the pieces were from China and the ones that were from Japan were mostly modern works of art. Although it was all very beautiful, everyone was sad we didn't get to see any older Japanese art (especially no samurai swords or armor). In order to make the trip have some learning involved we spent some time discussing light sources in paintings, Greek and Egyptian mythology, and architectural differences of houses in the late 1800s America. Of course you can't be that close to the loop and not have lunch at Fitz's. So we headed over there for lunch and a root beer float.

Tomorrow we're spending the day filming the play. Hopefully, I can get it all edited and uploaded by Friday afternoon. They've been working on their lines for the last few days, though I'm sure we'll have to stop the camera a few times.

The kids got to meet their JET teachers last night. Aiden will have Mrs. Battle again (hooray!), and Zoë will be in Ms. Kell's class. Everyone's looking forward to returning to JET. Zoë's first unit will be on power (which fits right in with out unit at home), and Aiden will be having a "left brain luau" with science and math. I'm not sure what that will entail since they're not allowed to cover core material in gifted classes in our state, but I guess we'll see. They're both happy to have some friends from Mystery Camp this summer in their classes too! I'm looking forward to having Fridays to catch up on documentation and housework. Well, maybe not looking forward, but the free time will be appreciated.

The flight home

Today was technically our last day of the Japanese unit. We have a few things to finish creating next week, and we're going to make a trip to the art museum to see the Japanese art. The kids have certainly learned a lot in the past 3 weeks. They've studied the arts, language, history, geography, and government of Japan. They've also learned about samurai and the shogun era, and have spent the time doing their math with an abacus. They have created a lot of works of art, a kabuki play, and have planned a Japanese meal. Most importantly though, they've had a lot of fun while learning. We're looking forward to sharing everything with the grandparents next weekend.

I get to spend next week preparing for our units. I have lots of new ideas and thoughts on how to address some issues that have popped up, and I'm looking forward to working things out. We're going to be doing math completely different for a little while for one thing. Both kids are at a point now with math that they really need to have mastered the basic facts in order to progress at their capable pace. So I've made charts for each of them and each day we're going to take 4 basic fact quizzes. When they can finish all 400 problems in 20 minutes, we'll go back to using the math books. Until then, though they're capable of doing the work, it's too time consuming and they lose interest quickly. I know that won't be the case when they've mastered the basic facts. Then I bet they'll start flying through stuff.

Kabuki

This week we've been focusing on Kabuki Theater. We watched some youtube videos of Kabuki productions and learned all about the history, styles, and costumes used. We also made our own Kabuki warrior masks which the kids are going to wear during their play.

They decided they wanted to do a jidai-mono style kabuki play (meaning historical) about the 47 ronin. This was a great idea, and they spent the morning learning about the story of the 47 ronin and writing the script for their play. They have adapted the story, but are going to put the real story in the program they're making to hand out at the show.

I can't believe that we've almost finished our unit on Japan! Next week is supposed to be our week off from classes, but I think we're going to have some art projects to finish in order to have everything ready for Japanese Night. I'm really going to make an effort for this to be the exception though. I think we all really need the week off since they've worked through the summer. Hopefully, it will be easier to maintain 3 weeks on, 1 week off when we're working with the curriculum from MBTP. Of course it's not that weeks off are really off...we'll still have piano, JET, and art and PE for Zoë.

I'm a little concerned about our schedule starting next week, but I'm sure we'll fall into a plan. I just don't think there's anyway we're going to have everything done by noon. They usually end up surprising me at how fast they can finish things though, so maybe I'll be wrong.

Research projects (Aug. 12)

Yesterday the children started their research projects as well as finished up with our literature part of the unit. Aiden is researching Tokyo, and Zoë chose samurai. They've finished gathering facts over the last two days and will be putting together power point presentations the rest of the week that they can share with their grandparents on Japanese Night.



Also, today they worked on 2 challenge problems. We started a new thing recently where they can earn 10 beads for each correct answer they get to a challenge problem. When I first introduced the idea, they read the problem and decided it was too hard and they didn't want to bother. Of course that defeats the whole point of a challenge! So today I sat down with them and let them slowly work through both problems. I realized it wasn't fair of me to think they would automatically know how to do these, so I showed them some ways to break the problems down and make them easier. They were so proud of themselves when they got the answers and earned 20 beads! Now I need to find new challenge problems. If you're curious this was one of the ones we worked on:



In the following addition problem AB + AB + CC = ABC, the three letters, A, B, and C represent three different digits. If A cannot equal zero, determine the value of each letter.

I got this problem from the math contest webpage. Thanks, Heather, for showing us that!

Haiku and abacuses

Today we started working on our book of Haiku. The children had fun creating these. Zoë wrote 5 today, and Aiden wrote 2. We're going to put them all together in a nice scrapbook that I bought so we can share them with everyone at the end of our unit.

I also found out Zoë's school schedule today. She's going to be taking art and p.e. at the public school. Art will be on Tuesday mornings and p.e. will be on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It may end up being a lot more running around, but hopefully it will be worth it.

I've finally convinced Aiden to go to school for art and p.e. too. Now I just need to call his school and set that up. Unfortunately, they won't be in the same building because K-2nd is at one school and 3rd-5th is next door. More running around I suppose.

Abacus work is getting easier. Zoë struggled to finish her homework last night, but things went a little smoother this morning. Aiden took a little bit to get the concept of adding, but he's off and running with it now. Tomorrow we're going to learn subtraction.

Trip to Japan

Today we started our unit on Japan. We have so much to do that I'll be surprised if we can fit it all into one month! We started the day learning how to count to 10 in Japanese, looking at pictures that I took on my trip there many years ago, locating places on a map and learning how to use an abacus. They were surprised to learn that the abacus wasn't just for fun. I bought real ones and they struggled in the beginning to understand that some beads meant one and some meant five. I'm sure by the end of the week, this won't be an issue and I won't hear anymore complaining, but that part of the morning did not go smoothly. I'm pretty sure at one point I said "what, did you think I wasn't going to challenge you to think this whole time?" To which they hung their heads in same and mumbled "no."

We have a lot of things planned for the unit which will end with a Japanese night at our house complete with a kabuki production, haikus, and of course sushi for dinner. They both seemed really excited to start the unit. I'm just happy to be done planning and into the execution stage. Someday, I'd really like to take them there. In the meantime we'll just learn about it and write to our Japanese penpals.