Hinamatsuri poster. Hina dolls illustration from fumira.jp.
Hinamatsuri (ひなまつり), or Girls Day, is just around the corner (it is always on March 3rd!). We can’t afford a nice Hina Ningyou/Dolls set (nor do we have room for one), so I designed and printed up an 8×10″ poster to display in our living room to remind us of this Japanese holiday. I just googled “free Hinamatsuri image”, then added text to my favorite image using Picmonkey.com to create my poster. You could also do the same thing using Photoshop.
I’ve blogged about Hinamatsuri activities to do with your children many times in the past. Click HERE for all my past posts about Hinamatsuri/Girls Day.
I’ve also been pinning cute Hinamatsuri ideas on Pinterest. Click HERE to view my Hinamatsuri Pinterest page!
I hope those links will help get you prepared to celebrate this popular holiday. What will you be doing to celebrate?
あけましておめでとうございます！How did you spend your New Years? My children and I ate mochi, played karuta, and watched a little bit of 紅白歌合戦 (Kouhaku Uta Gassen).
One of my daughter’s first homework assignments from Japanese School this year is to complete a worksheet about the 十二支／じゅうにし(Jyuunishi). This is something that I’ve never thought to teach her and something I don’t know too much about either. So of course I used the internet to look for the best resources to teach my daughter about the Jyuunishi.
I think I will begin by showing her a video of the story behind the jyuunishi animals. Here are a few of the best ones on YouTube (I love the 日本むかし話/Nihon Mukashi Banashi series!):
I also downloaded the story of the Jyuunishi on my iTouch for 99 cents via the “Koehon” app (for iPhone and iPad). If you don’t already have this app, I highly recommend it! The app itself is free. Once you download the app, you will have access to 250+ picture books, most of them Japanese!! This is a pretty huge deal, if you ask me, since paper copies of Japanese children’s books are not readily available in the U.S. Most of the stories are only 99 cents. You can either read the text yourself or listen to a pre-recording. Visit the official Japanese Koehon website HERE. (BTW, there are LOTS of NEW, great Japanese apps for kids now. I will do a separate post on those later.)
If you don’t have an iPod/iPad, you can visit Xuite’s website to listen to the story of the jyunishi (in Japanese) then print off the provided worksheet to complete.
Here’s another video to help you remember the order of the animals:
Then I will help my kids figure out what animal year they were born in, and read to them their “personality traits”. You can find those HERE and HERE (this website has a fun animal-matching flash game at the bottom).
Then, I will teach them that 2013 is the year of the SNAKE(へび). We might color one of the snake coloring pages by happylilac.net. My daughter made paper plate snakes (instructions HERE at “Crafts and Art for Children) at Japanese School.
If you have any other ideas, please share!
(You can read more about Jyuunishi on Wikipedia, HERE. It is basically the same thing as the Chinese Zodiac Calendar).
ぬりえ translates to “coloring pictures”, or coloring books/pages. As a young girl, I LOVED to color. I especially loved coloring books from Japan (the paper quality was higher so the color went on more smoothly). I always requested coloring books and colored pencils from Japan. Here are my favorite Japanese websites for finding printable coloring pages. They are awesome! (If you want more options, click on “Coloring Pages” under the “Categories” button to the right). Enjoy!
に is for にんじん (carrot)、にじ (rainbow)、and にんじゃ(ninja)！
onigiri ninja's by Jo of A Bit of This and a Bit of That
What do you know about ninja’s? Me? Not much. I think they wear black outfits that only show their eyes, throw shuriken’s, and sneak around at night. I read about ninja’s on Wikipedia, and it seems that the ninja’s that the world knows is mostly based on folklore.
Folklore or not, kids LOVE ninja’s! Okaasan to issho /おかあさんといっしょ (a popular children’s program) has some really fun songs about ninja’s. Unfortunately, NHK us super-strict about their copyright laws so I can’t show you the original on my blog. You can watch some super-adorable kids dancing to ”しゅりけんにんじゃ” though:
HERE are the lyrics. The other ninja song on おかあさんといっしょ is ”しのびあし”. If you search for it on YouTube, you might get lucky and see how fun it is! My daughter and I love to sneak around the house with “Shinobiashi (Quiet Ninja Feet)”.
This summer, a movie about little ninja’s called Nintama Rantaro came out. Did any of you watch it? It is based off of this cartoon. Here’s the trailer:
I would love to watch it! I wonder if it will become available for viewing in the U.S?
Here are some ninja activities you can do at home:
What are you/your kids going to be for Halloween/ハロウィン this year? My daughter is going to be a candy corn witch and my son is going to be a doggie. We are going to celebrate with some Halloween parties, a Trunk-or-Treat, a Chili Cook-Off, and of course, lots of candy!
How is Halloween celebrated in Japan? According to All About, the Top 10 Ways to Celebrate Halloween in Japan is:
1. Dress up in a costume
2. Host a party at home
3. Go get candy
4. Participate in a Halloween event
5. Decorate with Halloween goods
6. Eat foods made with pumpkin
7. Make a jack-o-lantern
8. Exchange gifts
9. Play at a park
10. Dress in Halloween-ish clothes
Check out my Halloween Post from last year for some other ways to celebrate Halloween Japanese-style (like Halloween origami).
Here are some new activities I found for 2011:
1. Learn all about ghosts and monsters in Japan at Bake Bake.
Did you see the giveaway in the previous post? Deadline is Tuesday June 21.
fumira.jp
July 7th of every year is a Japanese holiday called Tanabata（七夕）. It is a fun and pretty holiday to celebrate with your children!
The gist of the story behind the festival is this: There is a couple who lives in the sky… Orihime (the Weaving Princess) and Hikoboshi (the Sky King). They are permitted to cross the Milky Way and see each other just once per year… the 7th day of the 7th month.
1) Decorate a bamboo branch with wishes and origami decorations.
- You can purchase an artificial bamboo branch from saveoncrafts or Afloral.com. You could also use a different kind of tree branch.
- Cut long rectangular strips of paper from origami or construction paper (called tanzaku papers), and write a wish on it. For example, “Please help me to be a straight-A student” or “I hope my mom buys me a dog.” Then hang your wish on one of the branches and pray it comes true. (You could also print one of these special papers to write your wish on from printout.jp).
- Make other fancy decorations for your bamboo tree. Origami-club.com has A LOT of great instructions for beautiful origami. This is the amikazari that I made:
- You could also just print out and color some decorations. Here are some from nurieyasan and here are some from kids.nifty.com.
2. Instead of hanging your wishes on a bamboo tree, you can make tiny stars out of paper and hide your wishes inside them.
3. Learn the Tanabata Song.
ささのはさらさら のきばにゆれる
おほしさまきらきら きんぎんすなご
ごしきのたんざく わたしがかいた
おほしさまきらきら そらからみてる
4. Enjoy food like dango, manjyu, mochi, udon, somen, and red rice.
5. Read about other traditions here (you must be able to read Japanese).
The words that came to my mind first when I thought about words that begin with そ were そーめん/somen and ぞうさん/zousan.
image from misaki.rdy.jp
Somen is a summer staple in Japan! I start craving these cold noodles as soon as the weather gets above 80 degrees. They are delicious, easy, a big hit with kids, and refreshing on a hot summer day. The basic ingredients you need are somen noodles and dipping sauce. Then you can add your favorite toppings, such as:
shiso leaves
chopped green onions
myouga
sesame seeds
grated daikon radish
mandarin oranges
Check out this page by oisiso.com for inspiration :)
There’s also something called nagashi-somen, which translates to flowing-somen. Somen is sent down on a “waterslide” made out of bamboo trees while people sit on either side and pick up the flowing noodles with their chopsticks. Not sure how sanitary this is, but it looks fun! You can buy an electric somen machine for your home too :)
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Did you know that elephants say “Pao~／パオ〜” in Japanese? Cute.
