Oops!

Today Wakana joined my classes at the Japanese School. She wanted to see how I worked, I guess. We had a good time. We had Show And Tell and a spelling quiz. The kids were very interested in what we shared about our life in Japan and Guam. I took in some copies of the pictures painted by Wakana's mother.

By the way, if you want to look at her work you can check out Mitsuko's Paintings at this website. It's in Japanese, of course, but just click on the paintings to view the galleries.

I realized recently that the kids are learning English from texts that are very middle America. All the kids in the books are white middle class with American names and American activities. The reading assignments only marginally touch on the lives these kids lead. I downloaded a copy of a Japanese fairy tale and read it to them. At first the kids were puzzled but then they realized they knew the story but they had only heard it in Japanese. This was the first time they heard it in English. We had a great discussion on how stories change over time.