Grandfather's Journey & Japan

Our Five in a Row book this week was Grandfather's Journey. We only did a few of the lessons in Five in a Row. We focused on studying the geography and culture of Japan. Because it was mentioned in the book, we did discuss World War II briefly.

Some of the favorite books we read: A Pair of Red Clogs, The Way We Do It in Japan, Little Oh, Hiromi's Hands. How My Parents Learned to Eat, I Live in Tokyo, Pink Paper Swans, Suki's Kimono, and Tea With Milk.

Some of the books we read this week

We had pretend sushi for lunch one day. The kids remembered doing this last year with rice krispies and fruit roll ups so I thought I'd try something different this time.

I flattened a slice of bread, spread peanut butter over it, rolled it up, and then cut it into slices.

Peanut butter and jelly

Melted peanut butter and chocolate chips, spread it on a tortilla, put a banana on it, rolled and cut.

We did some origami.

We visited the Asia Market. The kids liked looking around at everything, but once it was time to choose something to take home, they didn't want to leave the snack aisle.

Some of the stuff they bought

Caleigh eating a donut from the Asia Market

They colored these pictures to represent carp kites that families hang outside their houses on Children's Day (used to be Boy's Day). They glued on colored circles for the scales.

I cut out Molly's and put on streamers. The others haven't cut theirs out yet.

I hung it up with the lanterns we made last week.

Notebook Pages

Map and flag of Japan; pocket to hold their origami; Japanese culture book has pictures for kimonos, tea ceremony, clogs, chopsticks, etc.; WWII timeline