Very Big Geography Unit and Lapbook on Japan!

If you're looking for Japan resources, this is the blog post for you--we covered A LOT!!! Thanks to Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations I also have some really cool links about Japan--be sure to click on those! My goal has been to spend only 2 weeks on each country; however, we didn't manage to do that with Japan. Altogether it took us 4 weeks! There are so many different things in Japan to study that I just couldn't narrow it down. I also found a really nice lapbook on Japan, so we did that, too. Here's a look at our long journey (though we didn't exactly follow this schedule):

Week 1

Monday: Introduction to Japan
Passport (Japan flag sticker and date stamp)
Asia Song
Locate Japan on world map, globe, and atlases

Read Colors of Japan

Tuesday: Japan Facts
Discuss names: Japan/Nippon/Nihon, “Land of the Rising Sun”
Capitals, large cities, borders, number of islands

Japan Map Project--Click on link for map and instructions.


Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Wednesday: Japan Facts
Discuss government, royalty, currency, climate, religion
Fill out a few lapbook minibooks on the above topics (see lapbook at end of post).
DLTK has a nice Japanese flag printable with a description; however, Isaac decided to make his own flag from construction paper.

Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Thursday: Geography/Science
Geography from A to Z: archipelago, islands, volcanoes, forests, hot springs
Page on Mt. Fuji


Discuss volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis
Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Friday: Japanese Art & Culture
Watch videos on dance and music
Maiko dance

Japanese Koto

Shamisen

Practice origami
Activity Village has nice origami patterns, easier for little ones.
Virtual Culture origami
DLTK origami


By the way, I didn't use origami paper (lack of time and money). I'm guessing it's much easier to fold than regular paper, so get it if you can!
Japanese woodcuts--we did these with watercolor pencils



Studied famous woodcut Hokusai's Great Wave
Independent Reading: Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
After finishing Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Isaac filled out a book report form on it.

Week 2

Monday: Japanese Art & Culture
Virtual culture Ukiyo-e
Virtual culture bonsai
Virtual culture ikebana
Make a Japanese screen Click on link for directions.
Isaac sketched his design on regular paper before making his screen, and he chose not to do the seasons. He wanted to do dragons and scenery instead.


Read some Japanese haiku, and then Isaac wrote some of his own to go with pictures (click here to get the form). I did help him a bit on these. Isaac prefers doing art and writing on his own, rather than having to follow a suggestion, which is also why he hates copywork and doesn't like to copy someone else's paintings. So, he would have done better at making his own haiku without having me give him a topic or picture to write about. Anyway, I was trying to challenge him. He has already done his very own haiku in language and also once for a history project.


Tuesday: Japanese Art & Culture
Costumes—Japanese friends (paper dolls) from makingfriends


Virtual culture kimono
Virtual culture Shodo
Calligraphy video


Wednesday: Sports and Recreation
Virtual culture sumo
Virtual culture judo
Virtual culture yabusame


Paper lanterns


Thursday: Japanese Inventions and Architecture
Read Look What Came From Japan
Japanese houses and temples
Virtual Japanese house (this is pretty cool!)

Friday: Language, Misc.
Notebook Page (form made by Jolanthe and Homeschool Creations)

Japanese language


Read Three Samurai Cats

Week 3

Monday: Theater

Make a bunraku paper theater


Tuesday: Food and Life in Japan
Children Just Like Me and page (form made by Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations)

Virtual Culture: Japanese Box Lunches (bento)
Photos of obento--they're very creative...I should have made one for Isaac.

Japanese survey--I have a few friends on facebook who have lived in Japan--one is actually Japanese and the other was a missionary there. I had Isaac come up with some questions to ask them about Japan, and then I sent the questions to them via facebook. Here are the questions he asked:
Why do people eat raw fish?
What is your favorite Japanese food?
What is your favorite thing to do in Japan?
What is your favorite place in Japan?
How do you say “Jesus loves you” in Japanese? (I'll include the answer for this one)
Yes sama wa anata wo Ai shite imasu--sounds like:
Yes summer woa anna tar wo I she tay mass
How can I pray for Japan?
Isaac really enjoyed getting the answers to his questions, and I also showed him some of their photos of Japan.

Discuss Japanese etiquette

Wednesday: Concluding Activities
Read Around the World in 80 Tales, p. 152 "The Crocodile Bridge"

The rest of week 3 and all of week 4 were spent working on our lapbook and finishing other projects that didn't get finished before. The link for the Japan lapbook is at lapbooklessons. The same website also has loads of Japanese craft ideas!

I got a few of the minit booklets from Guesthollow (I got our passport from this site, too). I also got a few from homeschoolshare. Both of these websites have wonderful lapbook templates for geography!















Other useful links for Japan: Time for Kids Japan's Official Travel Website--Visit Japan Videos Kids Web Japan National Geographic Kids DLTK--includes printables, crafts, origami, and other information Travel for Kids Genki Japan--I had this website bookmarked, but I don't remember looking at it when we did this unit. This site has loads of cool videos, including fun language songs, food videos, and videos of interesting things (like techno toilets) you see in Japan. I wish I had looked at these before! I think I'll show them to Isaac, even though our Japan unit was a few months ago! Recipes at Kids Web Japan Students of the World
I'm linking this post to "History and Geography" at All Things Beautiful.