Animals of Japan; Geology/Geography of Japan

We watched several "travel video"-type movies about Japan during this unit, and our favorite was probably this one from "The Little Travelers." It's made from the viewpoint of two little girls traveling (alone, they make it seem like) around Japan. Daisy and Junie especially liked it. There are funny parts where the little girls try new foods or play with other children, and it just gives a feel of "this is real life in Japan." It was cute.

We talked a lot about Japan's geology, since it is so exciting! Hot springs, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunami…all things the children are interested in. We had watched some videos of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami during our Natural Disasters Unit (you can find links here) so we looked up those and watched some of them again. The power of those huge waves is truly amazing.

We also thought the pictures of the earthquake's aftermath, here, were very interesting.

Here is an episode of Begin Japanology about Japan's volcanoes.

The children, naturally, also loved learning about the Shinkansen or bullet train. They've loved all kinds of high-speed trains ever since learning about them during our Train Unit, but we talked more about the TGV than we did the Shinkansen at that time, so it was fun to learn more about this specifically Japanese innovation. We learned that the Shinkansen was developed by a man who made kamikaze fighter planes (with no landing gear, but with streamlined fronts suited for dive-bombing ships) during World War II. He used the streamlined nose designs from the planes to inspire the distinctive front end of the Shinkansen. This was a good video about the Shinkansen, and this video about how the workers clean the trains in only seven minutes was interesting too.

Japan has many interesting animals, but we were most interested in a couple specific ones: the Japanese Macaques or snow monkeys (the ones that like to sit in the geothermal pools—we're always seeing pictures of them) and the bunnies of Bunny Island.

We quite enjoyed this movie about the Snow Monkeys. It's your typical kind of nerdily-dramatized nature documentary (narrated by Liam Neeson). Be aware that does show some monkeys mating. And a baby monkey dies. :( But the monkeys are so cute! We loved them.

Speaking of monkeys, my friend Carrie Ann told us about her visit to this monkey park near Kyoto. It was in one of the travel videos we watched too. It looks so fun! We would love to go there.

Bunny Island is a tiny island in Japan where there is a huge colony of semi-tame rabbits. They think some rabbits were maybe left there by schoolchildren a long time ago, and then multiplied? Here is some of the story behind it. It looks like a place I would love to visit. So many bunnies! There are lots more pictures and videos:  Here, here, here,  here and even more here.

Vegetable Bars

These bars were the first thing I thought of making for our Bunny Celebration! I got this recipe from a friend in high school. She always brought these appetizers to parties and everyone just LOVED them---they were such a nice contrast to all the sweeter things that are at such events! The recipe calls for refrigerated crescent roll dough for the crust, and I'm always meaning to try out a homemade crust instead (I would make these more often if I didn't have to buy roll dough), but I never have. The crust isn't really the star of the show here, anyway.

These are Abe's favorite---he often requests them for his birthday (along with artichoke dip). I don't usually put the red peppers on top, unless I happen to have them around, but the bars are really pretty even without the red peppers. They are a beautiful addition to a buffet table.

You can call them "Veggie Bars" if you want. I would if I could, but I have a hard time doing so. :)

Vegetable Bars

2 8-oz cans refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened

1/2 c. mayonnaise

1 package Ranch Dressing mix

1/2 c. grated carrots

1/2 c. finely chopped green onion or chives

1/2 c. finely chopped broccoli

1/2 c. grated cheddar cheese

(Any other chopped vegetables as desired---sweet peppers, cauliflower, etc)

Heat oven to 375. Separate roll dough into four long rectangles; place on a large ungreased cookie sheet. Press dough over bottom of pan and seal perforations. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Cool completely.

In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, mayonnaise, and ranch dressing mix. Beat until smooth. Spread over cooled crust. Sprinkle cheese, then carrots, then larger vegetables, over cream cheese mixture and press down slightly. Store in refrigerator.

Bunny Celebration

What a celebration it was! Abe and Seb helped me figure out place settings. Bunny ears and bowls made cute heads, and Abe taped some of those little glass beads (you know, the ones you use inside vases) on for eyes. Cute!

We all wore our ears during dinner, of course.

Even Marigold.

Peter Rabbit dishes I got years ago, at Beatrix Potter's house (Hill Top) in England

We put out all our bunny things on the table. That tiny brown ball on the white plate at center is a whole nutmeg seed with ears drawn onto it. Seb made it to represent our bunny Nutmeg :) And the little blue plate on the lazy susan is Nutmeg's plate of parsley (this celebration was in his honor, after all)

Our menu was all bunny-themed, of course

The bunny sweet roll recipe is here. I can't believe I haven't posted the recipe for vegetable bars before! It's one of our very favorite recipes. I'll put it into a separate post too. And the carrot-and-celery soup, also one of our favorites, is as follows:

Carrot and Celery Soup

1 med. onion, chopped

1-2 c. diced carrots

1-2 c. diced celery

1/4 c. butter

1/4 c. flour

1 1/2 T. cornstarch

1/2 t. paprika

1 t. salt

dash of pepper

2 c. chicken broth

About 4 c. milk

1-2 c. grated cheddar cheese

Fresh parsley

Saute the onions, celery, and carrots in the butter until the onions are transparent. Add flour, cornstarch, paprika, salt, and pepper. Add chicken stock and cook over medium heat until vegetables are soft (about 5 minutes in pressure cooker). Puree mixture with a hand blender until only small bits of vegetable remain, or as desired. Add milk and keep heating, but don't boil. Taste to correct seasoning. Just before serving, stir in shredded cheese and parsley.

I thought these bunny salads were our masterpieces. The bunny bodies are pear halves, set on a bed of lettuce. They were inspired by a picture I saw here, but I don't think the ones pictured are very cute. Too bug-eyed and toothy! And the almond ears are too small (unless you're making Netherland Dwarf bunnies, which we weren't). So we cut our ears out of apples and stuck chocolate chips on for eyes and noses (we would have used raisins if we'd had any on hand). The tails are mini marshmallows (cottage cheese would have been cute, but again . . . we were out). And Seb made the baby carrots out of . . . baby carrots. With parsley sprigs stuck into them.

For the top of the cake, we just cut out a bunny stencil shape from paper, then sprinkled toasted coconut into it. Seb made the little carrot for the bunny to eat.

We got out all our bunny friends to attend our party---

which ended with us frolicking with our favorite bunny of all, Nutmeg! We love him so much.

Citrus Bunny Rolls

These bunny rolls were REALLY good, so ignore the ghastly light on this picture. (Dinnertime is always after dark these days, which is not a great time for picture-taking!) The dough is tender and not extremely sweet, and I love cardamom in anything, really. The lime glaze (or you can use orange) was delicious too. And the bunny shapes are really easy to make. Just a snake, twisted twice to make head and ears, and then balls for tails. The children had fun helping shape them. We will definitely make these again for Easter! (or sooner!)

Here is the recipe, slightly adapted as we made it, from a recipe I found here:

Citrus Bunny Rolls

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 c. butter

1 tablespoon instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom or allspice

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 tablespoons grated orange or lime rind

1/4 c. orange juice, or 2 T. water mixed with 2 T. lime juice

4+ cups flour

Heat the milk and butter in a large glass measuring cup or bowl in the microwave on high, for three minutes or so, until the milk is nearly to the boiling point. Then pour it (milk and butter together) into the bowl of your stand mixer (this should cool it off quite a bit) and add the yeast. Wait a minute or two to add the yeast if you're worried about it, but in my experience yeast is a lot more resilient than we give it credit for. :) If you can put your finger in the milk for a couple seconds without burning yourself, the yeast will be fine.

After the yeast is added, add cardamom, sugar, salt, eggs, citrus rind, and citrus juice, and stir well.

Add flour, starting with four cups and adding more as needed to make a soft dough that holds together in a ball, pulls of the sides of the mixer, and is not sticky to the touch.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it a few times, then put it in an oiled bowl, covered with a towel, to rise for about an hour.

After an hour, pinch off balls about 2 inches around and roll them into long snakes. Then twist these snakes into bunny shapes, as shown above. Arrange them onto a greased cookie sheet. Roll a tiny round ball of dough and set on top of each bunny for the tail. Let the bunnies rise on the pan for about 40 minutes, until slightly puffy.

Bake the bunnies at 375 for 11-12 minutes. While they are baking, make the Citrus Glaze:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons or orange or lime juice, plus 1 tsp. of either kind of rind (rind is optional)

A little milk, if needed to make the consistency right (it should be thin and quite runny)

As soon as the rolls come out of the oven, drizzle them with citrus glaze and let it run down the sides as it melts.

Bunny Cookies

Why not? I had the cookie cutters. And we do like a good sugar cookie. I find to my surprise, that I haven't published my favorite sugar cookie recipe here (that link above takes you to a Fruit Pizza variation), so I will be pleased to remedy that omission now.

I do warn you, however, that we prize taste above all else, and ease-of-use next to that. So these are not the lovely, artistic, non-puffed cookies you see on Sugar Cookie Experts' sites. (Which may indeed also be delicious, of course!) These grow a bit in the oven, but they are easy to make, and SOFT and DELICIOUS. (For less cookie distortion, put the pan of cut-out cookies in the fridge for 10 minutes or so, to chill the dough before baking the cookies.) This recipe makes about 4 or 5 dozen cookies, depending on what shapes you are cutting out.

Sugar Cookies

1 C. shortening
1 C. butter
2 1/4 C. sugar
3 eggs
5 1/4 C. flour, or so
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. vanilla

Cream shortening, butter, and sugar. Add eggs and beat until well-blended. Add dry ingredients, starting with 5 cups of flour and then adding more as needed to make a dough that forms a ball in the mixer and is not sticky to the touch. Roll out on a lightly floured surface and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350 for 11 minutes (don't overcook), until the bottoms of the cookies are a very pale brown. Dough will still be light on top, and it may puff up, but it will sink down again as the cookies cool.

Frost the cookies when cool. On Sugar Cookies, we like cream-cheese frosting (recipe here---we also made a chocolate cream-cheese frosting this time, just by stirring in some melted chocolate chips, and it was quite yummy), or else this simple frosting (we like this much better than traditional buttercream):

Easy, Yummy Frosting

1. Pour a big pile of powdered sugar in a bowl (about 1 lb. or half a bag)
2. Melt 2-3 tbsp of butter and stir it into the powdered sugar
3. Add 1 tsp. of flavoring (vanilla, almond, lemon, mint, orange, etc.)
4. Add some milk slowly, a couple teaspoons at a time. Stir after each addition, and stop adding milk when the frosting is a nice, smooth, spreadable consistency.
5. Add food coloring if desired.

These bunnies were cute . . . and delicious!

Homemade Toys for Bunnies

One of the best things that came out of learning more about bunnies was that we felt so much more confident making things for our bunny (his name is Nutmeg, but as I told my friend, the word "bunny" so perfectly expresses the concept of "a bunny," I have a hard time NOT using it to refer to him!) to play with! There are lots of places online that tell about Bunny Behavior (here and here, for example) and also lots of good ideas for DIY bunny toys:

Some tutorials with pictures

More, some with videos

We really liked this post, too.

The kids had great fun making these little treat balls for our Nutmeg.

He quite liked this toy we made for him, too.

And he wasn't the only one . . . :)

My absolute favorite thing, though, is the great enthusiasm and dedication with which Seb, especially, has thrown himself into making life fun for Nutmeg. His life's Aim and Ambition is to make little Bunny Houses which Nutmeg will enjoy, and he's good at it! Here is one house Seb made;

Here we are looking into the door of the house. That's a little toy dangling from the roof that Nutmeg can bat at (you can put a bit of carrot or other treat inside). Behind the toy you can see the ramp up to the upper level, which is visible above and to the right of the doorway.

Top view---showing the various ramps and levels. And little Nutmeg has actually used them all!

Here's another little house Sebby built. It's hilarious to see Nutmeg go in down below, then go up the ramp and squeeeze himself out of the top hole. So cute!

Sebby is SO happy every time Nutmeg uses one of his toys or houses. Look at his excited, delighted face!

And we'll end with a few Gratuitous Bunny Pictures

Fuzzy Bunny Art

Abe's bunny

We made fuzzy bunny pictures out of yarn. They were not fancy, but they were fun. We got our inspiration from here, and the basic process is:

1. Cut tiny pieces of yarn

2. Sprinkle them over white glue in the shape you want.

3. Let them dry.

I think they are quite cute, but then, you know how I am about bunnies. All bunnies.

Even Daisy's funny one with eyes in his ears. :)

Malachi's bunny

Sebby's bunny (Nutmeg)

Bunny Posters

We had these bunny posters up during our Bunny Unit. We while away the hours talking about which ones are the cutest and which colors of fur we like best.

I like the rex fur best. I'll take one of each, please!

We think Nutmeg's color is called Castor. (He has the bluish fur down at the root, then it turns orangish, then it's dark brown on the top, as shown in the ring pattern above. It's beautiful.) He's a mini rex. Seb made this Informative Poster to hang up for our Bunny Celebration.

Bunny Origami

Or Bunnigami, as I prefer to call it, but I try to keep my titles more straightforward in case someone is searching for this. :) We found this simple little folded-paper bunny pattern here, and after a couple tries even Malachi could fold one by himself. We found three ways this bunny can take shape:

Just the head

Side view

Front view, whole body (this is particularly cute because the back has a little folded-up tail!)

Speaking of which, did you know bunnies' tails really aren't balls? They're more like fluffy triangles. I never knew that, until we had a bunny to examine!

Fun! We liked this project!