All Things Beautiful: Ancient China and Japan

Showing posts with label Ancient China and Japan. Show all posts

World Geography: Japan

Sam's map

Our first stop is Japan or Nippon as it is called by its people or Land of the Rising Sun. Japan is home to Mount Fuji, typhoons, Samurai, bonsai, haiku and sushi.

source

We have made maps showing where the ancient Japanese began settling, and later we explored Medieval Japan's Samauri. and just recently we studied the Meii Restoration in Japan and Japan's takeover of Korea.

We have also made a page for Japan in our World Postcard-Geography Album.

James' map of Japan

This time, in addition to making a map of Japan, we explored their culture.

Quentin's Japanese Bunraku Theatre

A pop-up picture showing a typical scene from a Japanese Bunraku theater performance. This type of theater is the main subject of the book The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson.

Alex's Folded Paper Kimono Doll

We ate at a Japanese restaurant.

Summer Fun #62: Suminagashi: The Art of Japanese Paper Marbling

Suminagashi (sue-me-NAH-gah-she), which means literally "ink-floating," is the ancient Japanese technique of marbling paper with inks. It originating in China over 2,000 years ago and practiced in Japan by Shinto priests as early as the 12th century. Japanese Sumi-e inks were originally used, dropped carefully to float on a still water surface and then blown across to form delicate swirls, after which the ink was picked up by laying a sheet of white rice paper atop the ink covered water.

I first saw this art form at Inner Child Fun and I used the Aitoh Boku-Undo Suminagashi Marbling Kit

Valerie suggests. This kit uses dyes that you drip onto the surface of water.

To make the water surface, you will need a dishpan or the like that can hold a few inches of water.

Some marbling kits come with circles of float paper that you can drop the ink onto so that the ink doesn't sink to the bottom. You can also use pieces of styrofoam. Other sets have you load up a brush with ink, which is then gently lowered to the surface of the water.

With either method, to create designs, gently swirl the ink on the surface with a brush or by blowing gently on the surface of the water either directly, or with a straw.

When you are satisfied with your design, lay paper or whatever material you want to use (any material that can soak up water such as cloth or wood) on the dye.

Lift up to reveal your design on the paper. Place the marbled paper face up on newspaper to dry. Excess color can be rinsed off under running water first. Once the paper is dry, you can add a second layer of marbling, just as you did the first.

This "fire" effect was created by blowing on the surface of the water after inking.

Celebrate Chinese New Year's!

You can celebrate Chinese New Year's Day in simple ways.
These lanterns are so easy to make. Use a piece of paper -construction paper, oragami paper, cardstock or heavy gift wrap are good choices of approximately 8.5" x 11" in size. Fold the piece of paper in half, lengthwise, making sure you line up all the edges. If your paper has a 'right' and 'wrong' side, you will want to make sure the wrong side (the side that will be on the inside of your lantern) facing out at this point. Draw a line along the open, long edge, of the paper, about 3/4" of an inch from the edge. Now, take your scissors and, starting at the folded edge, cut a strip from the folded edge up to the line you drew. Make the first strip about 3/4" away from one of the short edges and continue to cut several strips along the piece of paper. Once all your strips are cut, you should unfold your piece of paper and refold it lenghthwise so the pencil mark will be hidden on the inside. If desired, you can now color or embellish the outside of the lantern. To assemble the lantern simply roll the paper into a tube shape as shown in the photo above and staple or tape the edges together.
The handle is made from a strip about 3/4 " x 6-7 ". Attach the handle by taping or stapling the ends of the strip of the paper just inside the top of the lantern. Your completed lanterns can be hung up or set on a table for decoration. These lanterns are only for decorative purposes and should not be used near open flames such as candles.

We usually buy Chinese take-out so that we can have a relaxed day, but it also might be nice to spend the evening preparing some Chinese dishes with your kids.
Orange Chicken
Chicken and Mixed Vegetables
Chinese Fried Rice
Also, using chopsticks can be fun to do. We really like these beginner chopsticks until they get the hang of it. Kids can learn it alot faster than adults and it is great fine motor practice!

We have found the activities in this book to be fun, simple and educational.
They can be used with a wide-range of children.

These felt fortune cookie instructions are easy because they don't require sewing.

To make lasting and reusable felt fortune cookies, trace around a drinking glass to make the circles. Put glue on about an inch of one side of the felt, so that you have a half circle glued together at the top with both ends open. You could use a clothes pin to hold it until the glue dries, but I just stuck them under the edge of the bowl that holds fruit on my table. Once the glue was dry, I folded the half into a quarter, but this time I only put a drop of glue on the fold, so that the ends were free. I stuck them back under the bowl to dry. Meanwhile, I went online and found some Chinese characters.

My daughter had fun putting two characters together to make short little fortunes like "Good Morning" or "Happy Home." Once the glue was dry, the fortunes were folded and inserted in one end of the felt cookie.

When the fortune cookies were given out, I provided them with an answer key so they could figure out what their fortunes said.

Traditionally the Chinese celebrate the New Year for fifteen days. The fiftheenth day (today) is the Lantern Festival. There is a full moon in the sky; the first one of the New Year. All lover the streets and squares of towns and villages people hang colorful paper lanterns . Since the markets are held late into the night, the lanterns are lit. During the whole New Year celebration families display a variety of fruits and treats for visitors and a candy box servs as a centerpiece. The traditional candy box is made of wood and is round to symbolize family unity. Some, however, are six-sided because the Chinese believe that 6 is a lucky number. We made seven, each family member making one and made a traditonal display by combining the 7 boxes to form a flower.

One year we ordered this packet, which was a lot of fun and was educational. We used some of the items for decorations that year.

The red envelope held real modern Chinese Money. Their dollar is worth about 15 American cents.

The red scarf worn by school children in China...

lots of decorations...

including a small cloth Chinese flag...

It has many more items. It was a great start for our celebration of Chinese New Year next week.

Go here to order this China Kit.

Journey Into Unschooling has a great tutorial on how to make this great Chinese Pinwheel.

The Tangram Puzzle

Monkey Pod Games Wooden Tangram Set

When I saw this tangram set on Love2learn2day, I fell in love with it. I had to order one. When I received it, I was pleasantly surprised how thick these wooden pieces are -they are 1/2 inch thick! They make the most pleasant clinking sound when you are playing with them. We have some plastic sets and have had fun wth tangrams before, but these wooden pieces were really fun to play with. After playing with them, following the cards, for awhile, we decided to put them away. But arranging the puzzle pieces of the tangram into just a square so that it could fit back into its box proved to be a difficult task! It took three of us about an hour to figure it out, I am embarrassed to admit! The little boys at one point began to doubt that it actually was a square that fit in that space after all. I decided to make a tangram from a piece of paper to convince them that the square could be made.

A set of tangrams can be made any time you have a square of paper at hand.

First fold your square in half, like this so the fold line makes two triangles.

Now tear apart the two triangles along the fold line.

Take one of the triangles so that the torn edge is at the bottom, and one point is pointing up.
Now fold your paper so the points on either end of the torn sides are together.

You should get two new triangles when you tear them apart along the fold line. Put them aside.

Pick up the other big triangle and place it with the torn edge down and one point up, just as you did the first one, but don't fold it the same way. Take the top point and fold it down until it touches the middle of the bottom edge. It should make a little triangle on the top part of the big triangle.

Now tear along the fold line. Put the little triangle aside with the other two triangles.

Take one of the two bottom pieces, keeping the longest side on the bottom...

Fold the longest side so that you get a square on one side and a triangle on the other.

Now tear the square and the triangle apart and put them aside with the triangles.

Now take the other odd shape and place it so that the pointed edge is on the left and the flat edge is on the right. Now fold the bottom right hand corner up until it comes to the top left corner. If you do it correctly, you will get a parallelogram piece and a small triangle.

You now should have seven pieces.

Can you put them back together into a square?

After we did that we played with the wooden set again, first with the blue side of the cards, which shows how the tangrams fit together to make the different shapes.