Yesterday, we reached the grand finale of our Inventors topic. We had spent the week designing and writing about our inventions and it was finally time to make the prototypes.
Here we are hard at work inventing (and pictures of just a few of the fabulous final creations):
Today, as a part of our Japan topic, we learned about Buddhism. We found out about shrines, shrine rooms and Zen Gardens.
After learning about the importance of Zen Gardens in Japan and when and why they would be used, we designed and made some miniature Zen Gardens of our own!
This week, we have been learning about the earthquakes that often strike in Japan. We found out why earthquakes occur and what people can do to prepare for them.
This video helped us to understand plate tectonics:
We learned about the 'Drop! Cover! Hold!' routine that children are taught in schools in earthquake-prone areas and found out about the best ways to be prepared for an earthquake.
Using our new knowledge, we designed these helpful information posters:
Finally, we learned about how buildings can be constructed to be as safe as possible in an earthquake.
We used spaghetti and marshmallows to create our own buildings, then tested them to see how they withstood an 'earthquake'! Some were much more successful than others!
On Thursday, we spent the afternoon creating some delicious Japanese cuisine! We learned about the trend for kyaraben (cartoon bento boxes) and oekakiben (picture bento boxes) in Japan. As it isn't always easy to persuade children to eat healthy food, many Japanese parents have started to create tasty artwork for their children's lunches!
Source: pinterest
We loved looking at these pictures, but it was much more fun to design and make our own cartoon or picture bento boxes! Using lots of healthy ingredients, we created these fabulous designs:
