ひらがな Post-its

I've been trying to help the kids, particularly Dragon, learn ひらがな, the Japanese alphabet, for a while now, and it's been tough. The difference in environmental exposure between that and the English alphabet is really apparent, and I'm really seeing the dramatic difference it makes for literacy to have stories, signs, and so on in the environment assisting with familiarity with the letters!

But we've hit on a method that's working: post-it notes. It was inspired by this clip from YouTube, where the lady has square papers that she writes on. 

And I thought, "I can find squares like that!" Mine are sticky on one side, but that works: We write, we scoot them around and make a couple 2-3 letter words, and then I stick them on the fridge. The plan is daily practice.

I've caught the kids looking at them a couple times. And, if nothing else, it increases the environmental exposure to Japanese that the kids are getting. Which is all to the good. It's a long trip to fluency, but baby steps get us closer!