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ACTIVITY
23 Number Book with Japanese Characters Overview
Students can practice writing Japanese and making the English equivalent
of the numbers one to ten. This is a great opportunity to bring in
different skills, both in language and mathematics.
Teacher
Background
The Japanese language is a complicated and difficult language to learn.
In order to read their books and magazines the people need to learn
a combination of their different alphabets, which are made up of pictures
and characters.
Most writing is of two of the alphabets, kanji and kana. Kanji (kahn-jee)
is composed of ideographs or picture symbols with each symbol representing
a word. Kana (kah-nah) uses characters to stand for syllables. The
third alphabet, romaji (ro-mag-jee), uses each letter to represent
a sound.
Print is written from right to left, and top to bottom on the page.
Books begin at what we think of as the back. The Japanese write with
a brush, called a fude (foo-dah), dipped in ink.
Materials
- The
Park Bench by Fumiko Takeshita
- individual
books made for each student (ten pages and cover)
- large
class chart of number / character sheet
- individual
copies of number / character sheet
- crayons,
pencils
Procedures
- Discuss
with students the different forms of Japanese writing. Explain that
the Japanese take education very seriously, especially reading and
writing. Hang a chart of numbers and their corresponding Japanese
characters.
- Read,
if available, The Park Bench by Fumiko Takeshita. This contains
the Japanese characters on each page of the story along with the
English equivalent. The students can then take notice of the two
different forms of writing.
- Demonstrate
on the chalkboard the Japanese number characters.
- Have
students practice writing characters in the air using their fingers.
Discuss what the characters look like as this is being done.
- Explain
to students they will be making their own individual book of numbers
1 to 10. Show the class a blank book and discuss how they are to
make it.
- Students
should draw the Japanese character and write the English equivalent
on each page. The teacher may wish to have the students also illustrate
each number with a corresponding number of objects.
- A
center can be set up for students to work on their books when finished
with the other projects. At this center there may be the chart used
in the demonstration and individual copies of the chart for students
to copy from.
- The
students need to also design a cover for their books.
Extensions
- Students
may practice writing characters with paint and brushes. This would
make a good center activity.
- Individual
cards, like flash cards, may be made up of the characters and students
may practice trying to memorize them.
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