International Festival

We participated in the Cypress Homeschool Association International Festival.  The participants were to pick a country, research it, make a display board, be able to give interesting facts, wear a traditional costume, provide a traditional food for that country, and more.

This was a great project!  It incorporated research, history, economics, geography, art, culture, speech, and cooking!

We chose Japan.  The main reason we chose Japan is because we wanted to make our favorite- sushi!  We learned how to roll our own sushi back on my birthday, so we had most of the supplies.

This was really fun to do!  Halle and I researched Japan together, and she ended up with a nice project.  We took a trip to Harwin to shop for Japanese clothing (very hard to find, by the way.)  If you've ever been to that part of town you know that's an experience in of itself.  So many Asian supermarkets and stores.  And all of the signs are in Vietnamese, Chinese, or some foreign language.

The girls decked out.  Halle is wearing a robe as a kimono and Arden is wearing a dress (Chinese?) that was as Japanese as we could find for her.  When someone approched the table they greeted the visitors with the customary bow (specifically the way Japanese women do it) and said "konnichiwa," which means "good afternoon."  Japanese also wear a sort of flip flop/clog type shoe.  They also wear toe socks with their shoes.  We didn't have those shoes so we wore regular flip flops instead.

a list that Halle created of interesting facts about Japan.  The one that most interested to her was #7.  Slurping is a sign that the food is good.

A part of the display board.  We hand drew most of the stuff so it would count as art class for the week.  Halle drew the sumo wrestler and the Japanese cherry blossom.  I drew the company logos and Hello Kitty.  Arden made the Japanese flag and helped me glue the dry rice on the bowl.  Brian printed out a pic of the coolest Japanese car.  So it was a group effort!  

Each participant got a "passport" that they took to the different countries.  Each country provided a stamp or sticker for the passport.  We had a roll of tape that looked like Japanese money so we used that for our visitors' passports.

We served hot green tea and sushi at our table.  Brian acted as sushi chef and rolled out the sushi right there which attracted a lot of people.  The kids loved seeing him roll it and the parents had all kinds of questions about how to do it.  It was a hit!  Technically it wasn't sushi since there was no fish.  We only used veggies and cream cheese to make it kid friendly.  ;)  We served individual pieces in cupcake liners.

Another hit was Sumo Jack!  I used a scarf for his costume and colored his hair and eyebrows.  I tried to get his hair into a bun.  Didn't happen, lol.  There is a small ponytail on the top of his head, though!  He probably had his picture taken a hundred times during the festival because he was so funny looking.  The way he walks topped it off.  He toddles around so he looked like a sumo wrestler walking!  Sooo funny!

just a pic of all of us

Halle giving her presentation to a visitor

a simple traditional japanese game.  It took practice and strategy, and was fun for the kids to try.

The girls had fun visiting the other countries there, learning, and trying new foods.  All the kids did a really great job!  Here's a few

Brazil

Romania

Scotland

Germany (We learned that there's a place named Halle in Germany)

Greece

Egypt