Grades 2 and 3:
Adjectives: I see a Brown Bear
This term we introduce Japanese words for colours into our expanding collective vocabulary. Students learn the word for select animals in Japanese then use the verb ‘to see’ (mimasu) to talk about what animal they see and the colour it is (eg. Chairo no kuma o mimasu, or ‘I see a brown bear’). Students also experience manipulating this sentence using the verb ‘to see’ (mimasu) to make statements about other objects they can see. The Japanese writing system of Hiragana is used in the Japanese version of Eric Carle’s story ‘Brown Bear’, students then read along with the story and memorise the lines, participating in games and activities around the vocabulary in the story.
Grade 4:
Folktake: The Mouse’s Wedding
This term students explore the traditional folk story ‘Nezumi no Yomeiri’ (The Mouse’s Wedding). We observe the characters in the story (mouse, sun, cloud, wind, and a wall!) and some adjectives to build on words that we know, working towards adding to our knowledge of the 100 most frequently used words in Japanese. We compare the differences of picture story books in Japan and Australia, and begin to identify some hiragana and kanji characters.
Grades 5 and 6:
Hiragana and story telling
During this task, students explore stories that are written in Japanese script ‘hiragana’. They identify question words (who, what, when, where, how), and recognise the questions are being asked in casual Japanese language. Students can identify the hiragana characters (telling them apart from katakana and kanji characters) and challenge themselves to recognise as many of the 46 hiragana characters as possible. Students then create their own picture story books for their buddies, using a question word and Japanese script.