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45min
Grades: 3,4

Spark Art Lesson: How Do Children in Japan Celebrate Children’s Day?

ART, SOCIAL STUDIES
Spark Art Lesson: How Do Children in Japan Celebrate Children’s Day?
Spark Art Lesson: How Do Children in Japan Celebrate Children’s Day?

Curiosity trigger

Students find out why colored carp-shaped banners appear on the streets of Japan on Children’s Day, hear Japanese short story and themselves make paper koinobori – traditional Japanese decorations.
Curriculum and Skills
Work and Life Skills:
Social and cultural awareness
In this lesson, you will cover:
You will need
Any art materials of your choice for decoration, cards, scissors, glue, and string.

Authors

Source

Objectives & vocabulary

Students discover Japanese traditions and a Japanese holiday, and use this example to find out how people in world communities use legends, folktales and oral histories, to transmit ideas, beliefs, and traditions. They discover, identify and explain how different cultures record and illustrate stories through art. The main task in the lesson is to create a work of art that reflects community cultural traditions.

Objectives:
  • students understand that world communities use legends to transmit traditions and can give an example
  • students understand that different communities express their traditions through art in different ways and can give an example
  • students can create a paper decoration using a template
  • students create personally satisfying artwork using a variety of artistic processes and materials


Vocabulary: tradition, holiday, decoration

Lesson outline

The class begins by watching a short, inspiring video about Children’s Day in Japan. Next, the students listen to a Japanese short story linked to Children’s Day and discuss the story they listened to. Then they watch another short video to find out how the Japanese decorate the streets on Children’s Day in present-day Japan. The video is also an inspiration for making their own decorations, which is the next, most important challenge – creative expression. The students make koinobori – traditional Japanese carp – from paper, and decorate them as they choose. An optional addition is to listen to and sing traditional songs sung by Japanese children on Children’s Day.
As an assessment, students establish what traditions and customs are linked to Children’s Day in their country.  

What you get & what you need

Along with the lesson plan, you get printable carp templates and instructions for making koinobori - traditional Japanese decorations (with explanatory photographs). We also give you background information about Japanese Children’s Day traditions, which make it easier to teach the lesson. You also get the text of the Japanese legend “Flying Carp”, which you can read to the children during class.
The materials you will need to gather before the lesson are: pieces of A4 card, scissors, glue, hole punch, string and any art materials of your choice for decorating the carp: tissue/crepe paper, colored paper, glitter, markers, crayons, scraps of paper.

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