Tag Archive | Maneki Neko

Rounding Off Japan

January 10-11

Japan for the 10th brought out our love of kitties… It was rather fun to learn all about the Maneki Neko. It is an image we have seen all over the place in our Asian learning so it was wonderful to learn some background on it. Activity Village had a great video showing part of someone’s massive collection of these adorable cats… so of course I have to share it here! There is a second part to the series but we only watched the first one.

Emanuel and his Maneki Neko keychain

Gavin has started a new project for the month… he is creating his own Lego city, one hour a day at a time! So check back often to see the progress!

Lego town begins

Ken took the kids (minus Echo who is fighting off a bug) to the nearby park that they went to days earlier with Nana and Baba. I was told there was HUGE amounts of snow… and thankfully Ken utilized our camera and took some pictures of some VERY amazing snowballs made by our 4 creative geniouses.

The perfect snow for a giant snowball

Babies… and what looks like Ken’s thumb

They took their shovels with them, that’s my kids! PREPARED!

We got some rather amazing mail as well… all the way from TEXAS! Gammie sent some belated Christmas packages. Talk about excited kids! Echo was napping but we had to open the other 4’s as soon as we could get the paper off the boxes.

The source of the excitement

So much HAPPY! Thank you Gammie!

Of course once Echo woke up we HAD TO open hers as well! She does love a good present.

Fresh out of nap

Miss Trinity was very school focused and even got a workbook completed!

So proud!

The boys worked their magic with new instructions from Art For Kids! Snowboarders! Very appropriate with our consistent snow fall.

Gavin and Zander can be quite the artists

Finishing the week with the knowledge that Karyn will be here  TOMORROW is not an easy task. Everyone is excited. But we had to persevere. Emanuel had his Japanese unit to finish with TWO different activities… first off, the relaxing (generally) and beautiful art of origami. We made a boat, pig, jumping frog, and pigeon. We used the instructions that the paper came with our Little Passports mailing and then I used this wonderful free app as well… How to Make Origami. I think the jumping frog was Emanuel’s favourite.

Our origami

Our other and final item on our Japanese cultural week was the Daruma Dolls. We wrote down some wishes and tucked away his book that we printed off of Activity Village HERE.

Wishes tucked away

We also made a special Koinobori kite to represent Children’s Day.

Kite and box

We also tried our special snack – fruit mochi… I am not sure that the kids loved it per say but it was a fun first try! I swear we could keep going and going and going with Japan. But then again, it IS a country Ken and I are interested in. (Oh, we also shared Crunchyroll and an adorable anime this week – Poyopoyo.) We will probably also view this National Geographic photo app with some gorgeous photos of Japan called Fotopedia. I also found this Kids Web Japan site that looks to be a great resource!

With our treat

Gavin did his hour of Lego creativity… we have something amazing in the works I think!

Lego on the go

Our spelling test this time went pretty well… Gavin only had one word wrong (our) and Zander perfect score (of course one of his words was I). We are working on more ideas for the boys to keep them busier during our school day. More FUN learning like Trinity and Emanuel did with Trinity’s new boardgame! Thanks Gammie!

GAMES

Here at the end of two days I have some cute completions to share too! I think I am just loving the crochet to pieces!!! There is definitely more to come!

Miss T’s slippers

 

The itty bitty version