advantages of language

We had a busy day yesterday. My son, who’s six (almost seven) had his first basketball game.(They lost ) Then we had a lantern walk at his school for the end of Michaelmas (a time celebrating Archangel Michael and all angels). It was soooo pretty. About 500-600 families all with lanterns walking and singing. Amazing.

The thing I want to talk about, though, is the fact that the play the teachers did before the walk (they always do the same play “The Turnip Play”) was in Spanish this year! It was super awesome. None of the kids questioned anything–the visual cues were obvious so it was easy to tell who the abuela and abuelo were. It is great that the whole school (from 1st to 8th grade) learn Spanish. I wish they could learn other languages as well, but I’m teaching him Korean and Japanese at home (he can already count to ten, which is more than most of my class can do!!!) It is really important, I think, for children to be exposed to as much language as possible. Phoenix and I will watch Korean children’s shows together (without subs) and I teach him what I can that I know. Today I’m pasting stickies all over the house with labels in Korean! </Project> ^_^

In other news, I found this incredible story this morning:

Wataru Ito's 'Castle on the Ocean'

An origami artist from Japan, Ito Wataru, has spent four years crafting an incredible model city from paper – but now plans to burn it down! Mr Ito, 25, started building his ‘Castle on the Ocean’ when he became bored during his university entrance exams. Using just a knife and glue, the art student built up an entire cityscape over four years by cutting and folding hundreds of pages of craft paper. The finished piece is now being displayed for the first time at an exhibition on the artificial island of Umihotaru, near Tokyo. But incredibly, Wataru, a second year student at Tokyo University of the Arts, plans to set his work on fire when the show is over.

He said: “I’m very happy to display my work at a place where people who don’t have an interest in arts can come and see it.
“Looking back now I sometimes ask myself ‘did I really manage to create this?’
“I am devoted while I am working on my projects but I quickly lose interest when I complete them.
“When the exhibition is over I will burn the castle. I thought I could see it rising up from the ashes if I took a video and played it backwards.”

Wataru, who lives in Tokyo but is originally from Saitama, Japan, started working on the castle while he was studying to become an art student. After failing a university entrance exam three times he focused on this project, which became so large he had to sleep under a table in his tiny flat. The city’s centrepiece is a castle which is loosely based upon El Temple de la Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona, Spain. The central tower is surrounded by a cathedral, school, theme park, factory and airport and comes complete with electrical lights and a moving train. Incredibly, the entire piece – which measures 2.4m by 1.8m and is 1m high – has been crafted using only paper, which Wataru stuck together using craft glue, an art knife and holepuncher.

Close up of Origami Castle