TEACH JAPAN
Resources for students and educators
TEACH JAPAN
Resources for students and educators
About Japan: A Teacher’s Resource provides a variety of resources about Japan to educators for use in the K-12 classroom. Resources are organized around the themes of culture, environment, globalization, history, Japanese language, and social issues and consist of lesson plans, articles by leading scholars and primary source images and video. Through these classroom ready resources, educators are able to expand and deepen their teaching on Japan.
Explore the Denver Art Museum’s comprehensive collection of lesson plans and resources for educators. Lessons range from 30 to 50 minutes, and are based on objects from the Denver Museum’s Japanese collection. Resources available for all ages and learning levels.
Search, download, and create resources for your classroom using the Freer Sackler digital collection. With more than forty thousand works available for high-resolution download—expanding regularly with new acquisitions—you can explore the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art from anywhere in the world, whenever you like.
Discover how artists depicted samurai to explore legends and communicate social and political messages through musha-e, prints depicting warriors.
Compare a selection of functional and ceremonial swords and why the style and shape changed over time.
The term, bushido, is often used to describe the samurai warrior code during medieval and modern times. The definition refers to a late 19th century description and was actually quite different than codes from earlier times. Compare warrior codes from different times with the modern definition of bushido. Then, choose which code you think matches the samurai in the screen painting, the Battles at Ichi-no-tani and Yashima, from The Tale of the Heike.
Students will discuss the ways in which spiritual belief supported and enhanced the military function and cultural values of the samurai. They will experience this practice through an ink painting activity.
Learn the history and various functions of samurai armor during Japan’s shogunate.
Students will use images of samurai armor and weaponry to learn related vocabulary. They will describe the functional and aesthetic aspects of armor through focused viewing and reading, and they will draw conclusions about the changing code of the samurai over the course of 800 years.
Introduce students to Japanese art and culture as they explore works in the Philadelphia Art Museum’s collection. Each art image is accompanied by background information, a set of looking questions, and related classroom activity suggestions that students can use individually, in small groups, or as a whole class.
Find out more about TeachJapan.
Lead funding for the Asian Art Museum’s TeachJapan is generously provided by The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.
Additional support is provided by Susan and Kevin McCabe.
Teach Japan was created in collaboration with the following arts organizations:
