I love stumbling across awesome new (to me) Japanese videos!! This morning I came across the “コんガらガっち/kongaragacchi” series (from Pitagora Switch/ピタゴラスイッチ… I think… correct me if I’m wrong). The segment takes 12 different animals, and makes a variety of other combination-animals with them. Hard to explain, you’ll just have to watch! (Click HERE to see all the different animals).
Are your creative juices flowing? You could draw your own animals and make your own combinations with your kids. A great way to learn the names of animals in Japanese!
Love Pitagora Switch!! The world is so small as we can watch from YouTube etc. By the way, I’m looking for some good TV programs for 4-6 year olds, but so far I feel like Doraemon is the only cartoon that I feel like showing to them (not the violent ones). Do you have any recommendation? I’ve been away for too long, I don’t hear or don’t know anything about age-appropriate programs anymore…
Have you heard of “シャキーン”? That one’s pretty good. Others you might look into are: 日本むかし話 and にほんごで遊ぼ，
@Nami
As another Japanese mother, I really like what is on NHK eテレ during the kids hours (Usually between 6-9 am and 4-7pm Japan time though that can vary based on their schedule which can be found here http://cgi4.nhk.or.jp/hensei/program/wk.cgi?area=001&type=0&date=2012-08-30&tz=&ch=31&mode=2 ) The shows I usually let my kids watch are
みいつけた！4-5 yrs
いないいないばあっ！0-2 yrs
おかあさんといっしょ 2-4 yrs
フック ブック ロー (I don’t know what age group this is for…it doesn’t say on the NHK website, though it does say that adults and children can enjoy the program together)
Others you may find good depending on what your child is interested in are:
クッキンアイドル アイ！マイ！まいん！This is like a cooking show geared towards young girls…if you find that your daughter likes to cook, this may be a good show for the both of you to watch together and follow along with the recipe…or try to its kind of fast :)
Of course there is ピタゴラスイッチ, シャキーン, 日本むかし話, にほんごで遊ぼ that you and Hiragana Mama mentioned and that are really good too!
Here are some links to some videos of these shows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgbOBtr91l0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-16cst0cb3k&feature=fvwrel
This user on youtube has a lot of Japanese TV clips, especially いないいないばあっ so here is the link for that http://www.youtube.com/user/purinsesu55/videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q73h4oS-8zA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RN9SQfnAJg