Nintendo, Sushi, Japan and Homeschool Lessons

Look What Came From Japan at Amazon.com

Today Artist Girl, Game Boy and I took a day out to visit the Kansas City Japan Festival. We must have had a really fun time - Artist Girl voted it the most fun she'd had outside of Christmas! So what made it so great?

A few years ago we spent several homeschool weeks learning about Japan and exploring the food and culture. It was a really fun time for us - one of our most memorable homeschool projects. Nintendo systems and games have also been pretty big in our house at times. Between one thing and another Artist Girl developed enough fondness for Japan to choose Japanese for her foreign language study.

There are lots of aspects of Japan you can explore with your kids. Here are a few fun ideas:

• Check out your closest botanical gardens - Japanese gardens are restful places and give you a feel of being somewhere far away. Here's a list of top 25 Japanese gardens in the USA.
  
• Read some Japanese Folk Tales - ask at your local library, visit Kids Web Japan, or print off stories to read (no pictures). You might be tempted to start a world folk tales and fairytales tour.
  
• Many cities have Japanese martial arts studios. Look for Judo, Kendo, Aikido or Karate classes that you could go and observe or take a trial lesson.
• Japanese food is almost too good to eat! Take a look at food around Tokyo. One mom shows how kids can make tray sushi
• If you'd rather watch the professionals, take a look on Youtube.com for lots of chefs - here's one to get you started.
• I promised Nintendo - take a look at Nintendo science lesson plans.

There are so many more things you can do with your children to learn about Japan. I think I'll have to come back to this!