Ancient Japan – Suzanne Shares (2024)

Here are some resources for Week 10. Enjoy!

Ancient Japan resources

These are the hand motions that I created to go with this week’s History Statement. Also, you will find some Ancient Japan books below. 🙂

• Heian government–we used the same sign that we learned this week for the “Heian Period” in this week’s timeline. The motion was the ASL sign for “Japan.”
• Weakened in Japan–we bent over and acted weak.
• Shoguns began to rule–The shoguns were samurai/ninja warriors, so we did our best ninja karate chops.
• Expelled all foreigners–we karate kicked indicating that the foreigners were KICKED OUT (expelled).
• During the period of isolation–we closed our eyes and put our fingers in our ears. When you’re isolated, you don’t see or hear what others have to say.
• Circa 1853–we showed the numbers “8”, “5”, then “3”
• Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S.–We “saluted” since he was a soldier. 🙂
• Restored trade–ASL sign for “trade” that we used for last week’s timeline (from the “Zanjj and Early Ghana in Africa” timeline card).
• Allowing the Meiji–ASL sign for letter “M.”
• Modernize Japan–we hammered with our right hand since modernizing involved building

Commodore Perry and the Land of the Shogun-I almost yelled with delight when I found this book at our local library. I was searching their online catalog by the term “shogun” with little expectation of finding anything! I was delightedto find this book! It exactly corresponds to the last half of this week’s History Statement. I, honestly, had never heard of Commodore Matthew Perry previously. I look forward to reading this with the boys and learning more about him! On our homeschooling journey, I think I am learning just as much–if not more-than my sons are learning! LOVE IT!

Magic Tree House #5: Night of the Ninjas-We love the Magic Tree House series! Most of the ancient civilizations and time periods that we’ve studied this year in Classical Conversations have a corresponding book in the Magic Tree House series. Ancient Japan is no exception! 🙂 We read this a couple of years ago and enjoyed the journey back to Japan…and discovering that one of the ninjas in the book was a GIRL!!

My friend, Leann, over at Montessori Tidbits has a GREAT list of 25 Ancient Japan children’s books. These books are primarily fiction, which I really appreciate! We found some non-fiction books at our library but little to no fiction. 🙁 Here are a couple that we’re going to read. These are both written in Haiku, which is an ancient Japanese form of poetry.

Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku-This will be an entertaining read! I can tell by the illustrations and book preview on Amazon. It’s the story of a cat in an animal shelter; the entire story is told using haiku! 🙂

Guyku: A year of Haiku for boys-I couldn’t resist checking this one out since I’m the mother of 3 boys! Can’t wait to read it with them!

Shoguns-Do you wonder what a Shogun is?!?! I TOTALLY have been wondering this! Well, you should read thisarticle that explain their history during the Heian Period. (Thank, you Melody for this article!)

Missionary Biography: Jacob DeShazer-I had not heard of Jacob DeShazer before seeing the link to this book on my favorite CC blog. I can’t wait to read this book with my boys! Looks like we’re going to have to order it; the library doesn’t have it. 🙁 DeShazer was a Doolittle Raider, which was the band of American soldiers who were some of the first Americans to attack Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was captured and lived in a POW camp until the camp was liberated at the end of WWII. DeShazer became a Christian while in the POW camp and returned to Japan to serve as a missionary there for 30 years. Wow! I have chill bumps just typing this! I also found this documentary, From Vengeance to Forgiveness: Jake DeShazer’s Extraordinary Journey, about DeShazer’s life while researching. I may see if Netflix has it. (Wouldn’t that be awesome?!?!) I’m addicted, personally, to WWII biographies, so I can’t wait to read this book! (AND, this is a freebie…if you’ve not read Unbroken (by Laura Hillenbrand), the biography about Louis Zamperini, another WWII POW in Japan, you MUST, MUST, MUST. Stop reading, click the link above and go buy the book!)

Science (What are some types of leaves and leaf parts?

I made a Types of Leaves and Leaf Parts Matching Game for my Abecedarians class. Click the previous link to download the .pdf. When I created it, I created one set of the pictures cards with the names at the bottom of each picture. These can be used as flash cards. We used this set in class during our New Grammar time. We memorized the leaves and leaf parts using the flashcards. I also created hand motions to help the children memorize them. These are the motions that we acted out as I showed them the flashcard pictures:

• Spines–we traced our own spine on our backs.
• Needles-we poked our pointer fingers in the air because Needles are sharp and can poke you. 🙂
• Tendrils–tendrils are specialized leaves used for climbing, so we pretended to CLIMB.
• Bracts-Bracts are specialized leaves that attract the pollinators, so we used our arms and pretended to fly like a bee or hummingbird.
• Bud scales-we curled up in a ball on the floor and covered our heads with our arms. The bud scales are specialized leaves that protect the buds.
• Palmate-We showed the palm of our hand.

During our Review Time at the end of class, I used the 2nd section of the document which is a matching game. The kiddos enjoyed playing “Memory” to review this week’s Science Grammar.

Hope over to Half a Hundred Acre Wood for more Cycle 1, Week 10 resources! 🙂