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.
Close observation helps students see tiny details in the Grip Enhancers (Menuki) with Rats. They will use these details to engage in different visual arts and movement activities. A video about mochi (one of the objects on the grip enhancers) and activities in Japan around making mochi rounds out the lesson.
Objectives
Students will be able to:
List at least three details they see on each Grip Enhancers (Menuki) with Rats;
Make shapes out of clay based on shapes they see in the grip enhancers;
Describe how the Japanese villagers come together to make mochi and why it’s special for their New Year.
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.
Search the Pulverer Collection, one of the most outstanding and comprehensive collections of Japanese illustrated books outside Japan.
From simple, Zen-like tea bowls to ornate lacquer boxes the objects in this presentation illustrate Japanese aesthetics and demonstrate both ways of making art particular to Japan, and techniques pioneered elsewhere and perfected in Japan. Functional objects introduce daily life during different time periods. Connections are made between Japanese and Chinese culture and art.
This lesson uses depictions of festivals in Japanese art to examine the cultural emphasis on nature and the seasons.
The annual Bell-Ringing Ceremony follows the Japanese custom in which the end-of-the-year bell (joya no kane) is struck 108 times before midnight on New Year’s Eve, symbolically welcoming the New Year and curbing the 108 mortal desires (bonno), which according to Buddhist belief torment humankind.
One of the Three Great Festivals in Japan is the Gion Festival in Kyoto. The parade for this festival is probably the most beautiful and elegant procession in all of Japan. Learn more about the history and customs of the Gion Festival through an investigation of screens.
Every year on March 3rd, Japan celebrates the Doll Festival (Japanese, Hina Matsuri). Until recently, Girls’ Day was also celebrated on March 3rd. On this day every year, families set up a special step-altar on which to arrange their Emperor and Empress dolls, called “hina” in Japanese. Compare altars and dolls to learn more about these annual celebrations.
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:
