Highland Park 2nd graders work through a 9 week study unit on Japan, where they learn many things about Japanese culture & arts, including holidays (like Boys Day & Girls Day), clothing, history, & geography. Students created origami (the art of paper-folding), & they also constructed beautiful Japanese gardens, where everything is kept in a natural order, & is not symetrically arranged, like some western gardens.

They also wore Japanese costumes in a live performance which featured spoken-story folk tales & sing-songs that accompany the stories - they even sang "Sakura" (a song about cherry tree blossoms) in Japanese! They wrote haikus (a Japanese style of poetry), painted kabuki people (historical Japanese theatre actors) in art class, & finally, studied & sampled Japanese food.

Pictured below are a number of their Japanese gardens, which lined our hallways for a week! More Japanese Gardens...