For breakfast, we learned that Japanese families often have eggs, sausage, and toast. We had leftover sausage rolls and scrambled eggs. Close enough and it was delicious!
The kids then colored the Japanese flag and learned that the red center stands for the sun. We then had a great time making cherry blossom trees using markers and pink tissue paper. Anna and I agreed that they are one of the most beautiful trees we have seen. As the kids were creating their masterpieces, I flipped through a book on Japan and gave them interesting little tidbits about this little country.
By this time Brad reminded me that the kids have little Japanese happy coats which we had to go put on! Both the kids looked so cute!
Our next project was making fans. I was thankful my mother-in-law was there to glue the sticks to make the fans! The favorite project of the day was learning to write "Happiness" "Peace" and "Love" in Japanese! We also wrote our names. Japanese writing is beautiful and we all agreed that it looks daunting to learn!
Matthew's Japanese writing paper has mysteriously disappeared but he did a fantastic job!
One Japanese New Year tradition we thought the kids would enjoy is called otoshidama. Otoshidama is the tradition of giving a small gift, usually money, to show appreciation to children. Brad and I decorate envelopes and gave the kids each $1. (Brad drew a fantastic truck on the front of Matthew's envelope and a monster face on the back. I drew a heart on the front of Anna's and flowers, smiley faces, and stars on the back.)
The last project for this year was creating an origami jumping frog. It was super easy to do and actually jumps!
We played a game where you throw a ball (supposed to be a bean bag) up in the air and try to catch it. Then you throw two balls up in the air and try to catch them. You keep going until you can't catch all the balls before they hit the ground. The record at our house.....two balls! I will admit that I didn't really want to pick Japan as the country this year because I didn't really want to cook Japanese. My wise husband convinced me to do it promising we could go to a Japanese steakhouse. We went to Oishii Sushi and Steakhouse. It was delicious and the perfect hibachi cook was there. He was perfect because he didn't light a big flame at the beginning which the kids and I hate! Here, Anna and I both found a sushi that we enjoyed. This is a first as both of us gag any other time we have eaten sushi! Some traditions that we didn't do, but I thought would have been cool, were eating noodles (long noodles represents long life), eating KFC (apparently this is a big New Year's tradition in Japan) and listening to Beethoven's 9th symphony.
