Eggs and Rice :)

Even though the Japanese project was considered a tough project, being allowed to choose our topic sparked our interest. If our group, Rachel Zhang, Jonathan Xue, and I, Allison Yoon were given a project like “The Religious Bases of Shinto,” we would have lost our perseverance. Instead, we chose Modern and Traditional Fashion of Japan.
In the area of teamwork, I would not have switched my group for any other. Although in my mind, I think we met up one too many times (about 5 or 6 times,) it was all worth it. We all pitched in and managed to pull it together, and I am proud we didn’t rush it toward the end like almost everyone else.
Even though our poster board was splendid, our presentation didn’t go as smoothly. We painted Ji-Hee’s, a volunteer, face and the brush was too wet, so the black paint was about to go into her eyes. We had to end it quickly with a quick, “That’s our project. Thank You!” I was too freaked to see the audience’s expression although I heard a lot of laughing and some clapping. However, I am proud that we managed to keep the crowd from going to sleep by reciting facts.
If we could have does this one more time, I would have cut our poster board in half and not have filled the entire poster board. However, the biggest change I would have worked on was our presentation. To be quite frank, we were unprepared. We should have walked through it at someone’s house, but after that, I loved my project.
One of my more memorable moments was when we were supposed to be studying for our project, and we had 2 hours. However, Jonathan and Rachel were cooking eggs and rice. I was doing our compare and contrast essay for our project. The eggs and rice were worth it. They were delicious.  Yummmm

Museum

The Bower's museum helped me understand what the museums has to show all of us and it made the facts about China more interesting than just reading it out of a book. They had very fragile and interesting artifacts. For each artifact, there were little observations that you could notice and it can tell you how it was used. For example, on one of the potteries, the design was only at the top. That can tell us that the pottery was probably on sand and they covered up the bottom so it can stay. I learned that the Chinese people think that 9 is an auspicious number. The Bower's museum gave us ideas on how we can present and make our presentation interesting and fun.
The people in my group were Athena Mao and Jonathan Mak. We did our project on Japanese pottery. On a clay, we wrote down different pottery marks and the pottery marks help people know when the pottery was made. We got different pictures of the Japanese pottery like the Imari, Arita, Kakiemon, and Bizen. The other members of my group did a really good job. They gave all their effort researching and they got really interesting facts. We helped each other if we got stuck on a part and that helped us work faster.
The other people did a really good job presenting. You can tell that they worked really hard on the project and that they were creative. Watching the other people present also helped me learn things that i never knew. The project that the other people did shows their own creativity and how much they learned.
-Michelle Cuatrona

INSPIRATION!

The Bower's Museum helped me do my project about Japan. Looking at the exhibits, it gave me ideas about it. For every artifact I saw, i noticed how there was a little card next to it talking about what this was. Having the little cards helped me understand more so I thought that our exhibit should do the same. Also, having everything neat and clean makes everything so presentable. Thanks Bower's for inspiring me!

~Daphne Chiang :P

LEARNING IS FUN :D

Walking through the Bower's Museum has allowed me to learn a lot. Even though we have learned about everything in school, it was nice to reveiw. However, I did learn some things. One of these was that, the emperor's clothing was very grand and only rich people could wear it. Their clothing was weaved with gold and made with pretty colors and symbols that meant meaningful things. The emperors have pretty clothing!

~Daphne Chiang <3

UNDERSTANDNG "VALUES"

Attending the Bower's museum allowed me to understand the values of what exactly a museum is. A museum is a place where you open the door and fall into a different country. Even though you don't realy go there, you can experience the culture and artifacts. You really feel as if you have just gone to that certain country. Museums are a portal to a different world of exploration.

~Daphne :D

Japanisch Projekt

My group's subject for the Japanese project was about their amazing architecture. Japanese architecture has changed greatly over the many centuries, but one detail that hasn't changed is that it's been influenced by many neighboring countries. One country that had a LOT of influence on Japan and its archtiecture was China. By introducing Buddhism to Japan, China helped the Japanese apply the techniques of nature and simplicity to their architectural themes and styles. We showed models of a general castle and explained how they were built and protected and we also showed how the archtiecture changed over time.
My group worked hard to make this project a good one. We made time to form our model of a castle and rehearsed our speeches and presentations. We worked and used all our time the way we hoped to by researching and making our poster and write-ups.
If I could do something different with this project, I would probably start doing the project earlier so that out group could have had more time to practice and rehearse for the presentation.
From this "museum" i learned that it takes a lot of work to make up one good project and it can't just be one person doing all the work. The whole group has to work together to make a project the best it can possibly be.

Auf Wiedersehen!!!!

translation: BUH BYE!!!!

To Whom It May Concern,

Attending the Bower's Museum helped me understand the culture of China. What the Bower's Museum offers is roughly explaining their exhibits throughly. One thing I learned is that several pottery are made of jade, copper, tin, and bronze. How the Bower's Museum inspire us to present our own exhibit is that they presented very nicely, inspiring us to present as well. What our group presented, was about Japanese Education. Also, about how Japanese Education differs from America. We roughly explained about how Japanese schooling is like, while comparing that to America. From my point of view, other members of our group did well participating. Although, I think some were not really as fascinated, but we gave interesting facts like...Did you know, that Japanese students can quit school after the 9th grade! Overall, visiting the Bower's Museum helped us to link the similarities between Japan and China, thus helping us on the presentation.

-antownknee (Anthony Mao)

A Japaese Project

My group had displayed a presentation about Japanese architecture. For the example of Japanese architecture, my group built a model of the Hirosaki Castle in Japan. We had also designed a posterboard that held information on it about our subject of Japanese architecture.
As i worked, my other group members had distributed the work evenly so that we could put together a well-made project, with only several days to do it. In the toil of doing the project, it had come out, like we had expected it to. If I had presented, I would have spoken in a clear voice, so that people would be able to hear me. I would have talked about influences that came into Japanese architecture.
It was educational and infomative for us to research and learn abou different aspectes in Japan that had made it unique in its own ways.

Japanese Project Self Evaluation.

For my group's presentation, we prepared things about Japanese entertainment, namely the popular music, games, and manga and anime in Japan. We explained what J-pop was like and how it contrasted with American pop music. In addition, we compared manga and anime to comics and cartoons. Finally we explained rules to popular games such as Go and Sudoku. In order to create this presentation, my group had to work well together. At times we would have small disagreements such as what color to make the title, but we would eventually come out with something that made us all content. Everyone would also do every part they were assigned to do for the project. Overall, my project partners did well. However, i would like to have more interactive things in our presentation. Also, it would have been nice if there was more time to prepare. I think this project was helpful to our understanding of Japan's culture.

******!!!!!!The Bowers Museum!!!!!!******

Dear Reader,
A few weeks ago we attended the Ancient China Exhibit at the Bowers Museum. In my opinion, I think that we learned alot about Ancient China and their culture. Attending this Exhibit, helped me better understand what exactly a museum is and what it offers to the public. For Example, I learned that there is alot of information for us to absorb and take in. The Bowers Museum also has alot of activities and knowledge to offer us.
The Bowers Museum inspired me to present our own exhibit on ancient Japan. I wanted everyone to share my knowledge of Japan's History, Culture, and other interesting facts about Japan. I saw different presentations that were very interesting. Another group did a unique dance and showed us an aspect of Japanese Art. I think the audience really liked interactive presentations more than groups that just gave information. Like the Bowers Museum, my group gave information on Japanese dishes, cuisines and their diet, along with showing the student body how to make sushi. Next time though, I think our group needs to practice our presentation skills a little bit more. Overall, I think the Bowers Museum and our own Japanese Exhibit impacted my life greatly.

Sincerly,

Nicole Waldecker

READ THIS!!! ITS ABOUT MY JAPANESE PRESENTATION!!!

For the past few weeks, the entire seventh grade has been working on a Japanese project. Each of us are to come up with a main topic our projects will be on. And, finally, we will present our work.

My group, which consists of EJ Ocampo, Raj Budda, and I, chose to research about Japanese entertainment. The three main types of entertainment were Noh theater, Kabuki drama, and the entertainment from geishas. Lastly, we performed a short, humorous Kabuki play that emphasized about the hardship of becoming a geisha.

During the beginning of our inquiry, we weren't very productive and focused. But, as the date for presentations neared, we became much more determined to finish the project. We first divided a section for each of us to research and write about, but I would have to revise the others writing in the end. This prevented us from arguing over which information was correct and which ones we would use during the presentation. Our overall participation, effort, and researched information were all very proficient. I am very satisfied with our work, as well as our presentation.

I believe the audiences'general impression of our presentation was humorous. They laughed many times and enjoyed our exhibit. Though I am content with what we did, there were still a few mistakes. For example, we weren't able to put all the information we knew on the presentation board as well as in our presentation due to the time pressure. I would have done a few things differently and fixed our mistakes.

This experience has been a great and will furthermore deepen my confidence in presenting or speaking in front of large crowds. I really enjoyed everyone elses' presentation as well. Many were creative and fun to watch and many required volunteers from the audience.

something

Our group presented about Japanese gardens in long beach. Our group presented with a video we took inside the Japanese garden. During our presentation, we made a poster to show that we understood Japanese gardens and what they were influenced by. we showed a video about us feeding koi, and the zen gardens. we learned many things because of this project. i think the audience kind of enjoyed our presentation, but we could have made it a little more interesting by playing a game with the audience, maybe like jeopardy. i would do many things differently next time because my group argued a lot while doing the project. for example, when we were building our model on the Japanese garden, we argued about what kind of material to use for the lake. i am glad that Mr. g assigned this project because it gave us a great opportunity to learn more about japan. this also gave us an oppurtunity to learn more about japanese gardens and their culture and their history.

file:///F:/jap%20vid.avi

By attending the Bower's Museum, i was able to able to better understand or value what a museum is, and what if offers to the public. The hands on art projects, and guided tours gave me much more information in different forms that were very inspirational to my future studies of history. Of the many things i learned at the museum, the one thing that really stood out to me was how the number of dragons on each piece of clothing were relateed to each society level itself.
The Bower's museum helped my group design our presentation, becauase we were able to experience what a good tour guide would say to his or her group. My group presented on the main fashion industry of Japan: Harajuku, Japan. Though some of my group members did not put in as much effort as others, I think the teamwork during the presentation was there. I do hope that the audience enjoyed our presentation, but of course, there is always room for improvement. Next time, I would make sure that everyone in our group commits to the same amount of work for the project.
Overall, I enjoyed our museum experience as a whole, and i think that interactive experiences such as these help us learn better than just being in an everyday classroom.


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Japan + China + Bower's= Japanese Proj and field Trip to a Museum yehaha :)

The Bower's Museum helped us learn a few interesting facts about Chinese culture. The Bower's Museum also had some artifacts that was found, it was fragile. The artifacts teach us more about how the Chinese may have lived back then. I learned that that the Chinese were very auspicious people. On their silk robes there are nine dragons, because nine is an auspicious number. The Bower's Museum showed us how to present artifacts and culture. Seeing their exhibits helped us to understand how we may present.
My group (Melina Castorillo, Tiffany Chu, Micheal Park) will present Bunraku Puppetry. First we will present history and information that we have collected in our allotted time. Then we will show our fellow 7th graders how Bunraku puppeteers actually control a puppet. My group had different jobs for the project. We all tried to share information. We researched history on the topic, as well as look at some videos that showed us Bunraku puppets, puppeteers, and everyone involved in a Bunraku play. I also learned about important people like Chikamatsu, a famous Bunraku play writer.
I loved watching others present their Japanese exhibits, each project gave us different information. It was fun to see what they learned and show us visuals, plus give us a few demonstrations. It was a good experience, I learned many new things.

The Bowers' Museum, learning about Japan, AND MORE! :)

The Bowers Museum exhibition of China's history and its famed Silk Road was very informative and yet enjoyable. Many artifacts surrounded my group and me as we learned about the great civilization of the past and the present as our docent taught us so many things. For instance, if there was a dragon on an article of clothing, the number of toes it had showed how respected he or she was. The maximum number of toes a dragon could have was six. Through this museum, I learned that museums are to inform people; to bring an ancient civilation to life. Museums are to be respected! When I learned that we were to present our own exhibit on an aspect of Japanese history, I was very skeptical if the exhibition could become respectable, or even remembered! Nevertheless, because of the Bowers Museum, my group tried to bring in as much information, closely related to our topic, remember and understand all of it, and bring in an "artiact" as well. Our exhibition was on Japanese education and how it differs from that of America's. We compared and contrasted different parts of the educational system and schools. Also, we contrasted the differences in each education system by comparing an academic day in the life of a student in both countries. In terms of efficiency and effort in work, my group members excelled! They obtained massive amounts of information and in a matter of short days became experts on their topics. My two partners helped in every way possible in making our exhibition try to live up to the standards of the Bowers Museum. When all our work was finally collaborated, all our hard work paid off. Although our exhibit may not have been as good as some of the other exhibitions, the audience may have been able to relate to and enjoy our exhibition being that it was abotu students and they were students. The next time I do a museum exhibition, I would try to bring in more artifacts and work even harder in making our presentation the best it can be. Efficiency in work and not procrastinating would also be something to work on. This experience truly helped me learn more about the Japanese culture that we were learning about and how the country impacts the world. Becoming the teacher and the expert helps very much in the process of learning! :)

Inspiration to Presenting the Jap. Museum Exhibit

Dear Reader,

The Japanese museum presentation was very interesting to watch and present. But we wouldn't be able to present like we did if it wasn't for the marvelous trip to the Bowers Museum. The Museum showed us that we needed many facts and knowledge about the artifacts, to be able to interest the audience. Not only do we need the facts but we also need to give clear information. Those are the points that led us to give a neat presentation.

As we were touring through the museum by the docents, there was one interesting artifact that caught my eye. It was the extraordinary porcelain that the Chinese made. However, parts of the world wanted to know the secret of how to make the porcelain. But the Chinese kept it a huge secret, therefore making porcelain very precious.

I was inspired to present my own exhibit with my group because of how much the Bowers Museum has offered to us. They had many interesting artifacts that the kind docents generously explained to us.

My group presented about the Japanese legends. We also gave a demonstration of how Japan was formed. We gave information about some of the monsters that the Japanese greatly feared and worshiped, such as the Kappa.

My team greatly contributed to our presentation. Each of my teammate researched on our topic. One teammate helped me decorate our poster board while the other one gathered additional information.

In my opinion, i think the audience didn't find our presentation too boring or too interesting. But i think next time, we will try to make our presentation a bit more interesting by adding more artifacts instead of just giving out information and presenting one artifact.

I think this experience has let me understand what the docents at the museum has to do to give out such good information yet making it interesting enough at the same time. This Japanese exhibit has inspired me to do more than just give out information on our project, and we'll be sure to improve more next time.

-Jennifer Poh

Japaneeessseeeee museum

The visit to the Bower's museum helped me understand more about the Japanese culture. The tour guides explained a lot about the Japanese culture. They talked about their kimonos and their pottery. Instead of just having lessons at school where you read the book and answer questions we were able to go to the museum where many resources were available. We also participated in hands on art projects.That the women in Japan made their own kimonos. By the time they were finished with their kimono, their eyes were as bad as 60 year olds. This was due to the fine stiching that the kimono was required to create. Also, back then, they didn't have good lighting.Their exhibits helped us understand about the Japanese culture. This made me want to present a good presentation to help people in my class to understand about the Japanese culture.We presented the tea ceremony. We reenacted the tea ceremony with real kimonos and the same tea powder they used. We also explained all the steps they had to go through to perform the tea ceremony.My members did really well to explain the tea ceremony. We went to the library several times to research. We worked every other day to perfect the presentation. We worked together well. We all worked hard to finish the project.I think they were more interested in the kimonos and the tea set that we used in the tea ceremony. It was pretty interesting what the Japanese do during the tea ceremony.We would have to rehearse the reenactment a few times to perfect it.In real life the Japanese would take 3 to 5 hours to drink the tea. It was more of a religous experience.

Bower's and Japanese Museum! Yay! :)

By attending the Bower's museum, it helped me understand how visiting it was helpful; to our knowledge and why we should value it. Not only does it show you artifacts of the past, it also allows you to learn about the history and culture especially about China. With the many artifacts, and the explanation given by our docent for each, I learned many things throughout the tour. However, the main thing that I had learned was all the different types of pottery that was made with different materials such as celadon, jade, and porcelain. Each material that made the artifact centuries ago has a different syle, design, and shape.

After seeing how the Bower's museum had set up their artifacts, our whole entire seventh grade class was inspired to make our own museum and exhibit. Instead of making one on China like what the museum had presented, we made one on Japan. We each chose a topic that relates with the old and modern Japan.

For my group, we chose to do Japanese Ikebana which is the traditional Japanese art of flower arranging. We included a poster board with different information about Ikebana along with pictures of the different types. With that, we also made our own Ikebana with the Chabana/Nagarie style. We did a lot of research, and had putten a lot of effort into our project. In my overall view, I believe that we had done a good job, and had made a great Ikebana ourselves especially since this was our first time. At the end, I beleive that we had presented a good speech on our project of Ikebana. In my opinion, the audience's general expression about our exhibit.presentation would be neutral. Our actual Ikebana was commented to be very pretty, but our presentation was pretty boring with just facts about Ikebana. If we were to do it again, I beleive that we would make it more interesting with our presentation.
I believe that this experience was really fun and it was cool to make our own Japanese exhibit with Ikebana!

Bower's Experience

My trip to the museum was very enjoyable. Going to the Bower's museum really helped me to understand about Japan. By attending the Bower's museum, I found out that a museum is not for just viewing random objects, but to observe them and learn from them. One thing I learned at the Bower's Museum is about the ancient pots. They came in all sizes, shapes, colors, and material. They were all used for different purposes, such as storing things or cooking food. The Bower's Museum taught me all sorts of things, and so I learned a lot of things. One thing I was mainly interested in was art. It was really cool, so I decided to do it for our project. For our project, we talked about how Shinto and Buddhism influenced Japanese art. For Shinto, we talked about how it influenced it by making pictures of nature, peace, and the spirits. For Buddhism, we put how Buddhism, most pictures were about Buddha, and how the color of the background reflected Buddha's mood. I think we did a pretty good job on this project. We all got together at the library, typed stuff up, did the poster board, and practiced our presentation. I think everyone did equally well. We all participated ,and we worked hard. I think the audience was pretty interested. I mean, when I was up there, I didn't see anyone fall asleep or look bored. Next time, I think we could prepare a little more stuff. Bower's Museum really helped me on this project. I learned about all kinds of art, and so that helped me a lot. I hope that in the future, Bower's Museum will help me on other Japanese projects as well.

Japanese Museum Project Reflection

The Bowers Muesum gave me alot of interesting information. Like how the young Chinese woman couldnt see by the time they were twenty-one because of all the very fine details they put into their fabrics in such dim light. But they didn't help my group because we were making a presentation on Kabuki, type of Japanese Drama, and they didn't have our topic. My group explained how Kabuki was a Japenese Drama that combined music, dance, and mime for highly stylized performances. We also talked about the costumes and makeup. Like how the colors reflected the characters the actors were portraying. Bryant and Poonam did the setup while I was at home sick, and I came through by bringing the items we needed for the exibit and saying my lines for the presentation. I think the audience liked our presentation because the teacher made good comments and the audience gave us a big round of applause. Next time i'll try to be there and help out with the set up. Thank you Bowers Museum for giving me unforgettable information that will last a life time.

Projet japonais et le Musée Bowers

Bonjour People!!!
Very recently, we took a trip to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. It was a very exciting trip; we saw many Chinese artifacts and did a very interesting art project afterwards. The artifacts were made of ivory, wood, jade, and porcelain, in China. There was a giant harry-potter-like-but-smaller chessboard and chess set made from polished wood and ivory. There were jade water bowls and porcelain jars. There were wooden and pottery statues from the Han Dynasty. All of these artifacts were beautiful and helped us understand the beauty of China. When we came back to Whitney, Mr. G was inspired by out trip to make out very own presentations and "museum."
My group did our project on Japanese Mythology. Since we chose such a broad topic, we decided to hone in on one creature/spirit, one myth, and the family tree of the gods. We chose the Tengu, the creation myth, and the main gods respectively. The people in my group did a lot of work. Sorta. They reasearched, collaborated and put a lot of effort into this. Kinda.
On to the project of out presentation. I honestly do not remember a single thing about the audience. I was focused on trying not to cough through the whole thing. (I have a bad cold) If we do this another time, I would probably spend more time on it and not procrastinate as much. All in all, this was a very valuble and fun experience.

Au revoir,
Smruthi

REFLECTIONS of our Japanese Museum

Attending Bower's Museum allowed me to understand the museums are a place that share history dating back to hundreds of centuries ago to the public. We should value museums because they give us more knowledge on things that we are learning in history class.
One thing that I learned as I walked through Bower's Museum was that the Chinese spend months making things such as robes with detailed designs and tusks with realistic figures carved into it.
Bower's Museum inspired me to present my own exhibit on Japan by showing me that there are many things that can be taught in one short exhibit, and that you can't just present a bunch of facts, you have to make it interesting for people.
My group presented the topic of Kabuki. We talked about the history, the costumes, and the stages. We also talked about what Kabuki meant to people, and we also mentioned what different makeup colors and mask types meant. We also brought Kabuki masks with a Kabuki scarf with a scene sewn on to it.
My group's teamwork was terrific. We split up to do various tasks. We all gathered information, and typed up our portion. I was in charge of getting other sources and writing the bibliography and buying a board. Another group member was in charge of getting an idea for our 3D model, and how to get it. Another group member was in charge of gathering pictures that would help us present our topic. In the end, we all cooperated into making a board and an awesome presentation.
In my opinion, I think our audience was impressed by our presentation. Everyone seemed curious when we brought up two glass masks. The teacher seemed like she was enjoying our presentation, too.
Next time, I would try to interact with the audience more, so that they wouldn't be thinking that it is just another ordinary presentation. I would try to bring something different from every body's presentation, into our presentation.
Overall, even though we were stressing about this project, we still came up with a brilliant exhibit, and I am very proud of what my group and I pulled together.

Japanese Musuem

The Bowers Museum helped me understand the way people set up muesum exebitions. I leaned that the Chinese had different styles of kimono like out fitts and different sybols on them ment different things. It was an interesting musum with a bunch of info on the artifacts they had but for inspiration are group was still deciding what to do. Are group did a presentation on Kabuki. We told the audience about kabuki stages, costumes, and the history of Kabuki. For the artifacts we showed we found items that showed the most resemblance to traditional Kabuki props such as a wooden sword and glass masks. Poonam and i set up the poster and prepared the speech and got the wooden sword artifact. LaShawn was missing for all the set up time but came through with the masks and quikly learned her lines for the speech. The audiences general impression nof the audience was that they seemed interested. Especially for are teacher Ms. Brannen who made the connection with the Elizabeth Theater from the Renaissance time period. I dont think i would do anything different next time. I would do Samuri next time because Samuri are awsome and they looked very interesting to research and do a project on. I enjoyed seeing my friend Sohans group do a demenstration on Kendo. It was pretty exiting seeing the demonstration and learning about the gear invalved.

Japanese Museum

Katy Bollas

My Japanese project was on Japanese Architecture. We presented the architecture in shrines and temples made by Buddhist and Shinto architects. We also showed how architecture has changed dramatically over the years.

The other members in my group could have contributed more. They did contribute by helping do the research. They helped make the speech which I think was the hardest part of the project because of all the explaining and facts we had to put into it. Over all, I think my group could have done a better job of using teamwork.

The only thing that I would do different next time is probably the way we made our 3-D model. I think I would do this differently because I think our model was missing a few details. I also think that next time I would spent less time researching and more time doing the actual project.

I think that this experience helped us learn many things that otherwise we might not know. I think it would be fun to do this again some time in the near future.

Japanese Museum Exhibit/Presentation Project Reflection

The Japanese Museum was a great experience. My group did not start as early as other groups have. We started around Wednesday which was a pain. It made us put our heads together and we researched, sent emails to each other, and also it increased our teamwork. Our topic was about Bunraku which was a type of puppetry and the one that is shown in the book The Master Puppeteer. We were going to do a little puppet show and brought a doll and made a little scene for the play. It was lots of work and we decided to cancel it. The audiences general impression was that our exhibit/presentation was incredible, amazing, and unbelievable. They thought that it had so many great ideas and many of them told us they had learn many things just by looking at the poster board. Some of them even started to cry because it was so beautiful. We made little decorations together with the group that we shared tables with. We made little flowers and we had taped some on the poster board which made it beautiful. I do not want to change anything next time because I believe my exhibit/presentation is perfect in my opinion. I loved how many other groups tried to become like us and make a perfect exhibit/presentation but they were not worthy enough for us to teach them the way of the true master. I think this experience was great for all of us, 7th graders, and I wish to have another just like this.

Religion influence on art????

My group presented on how religion influenced the art of Japan. The two religions were Shinto and Buddhism. The Bower's Museum inspired me to present our own exhibit by giving us all this information and letting us know what Japan was like. In our presentation we showed the differences in the religion influence on art and at the end we showed them pictures while the audience has to tell us is it Buddhism or Shinto art. The other people in my group did a lot of work too. We each divided the work into equal groups and did many things together. My opinion on the audiences general impression was we looked pretty good and spoke loud and clear. Something we could do differently next time is memorize our lines more better.

While at the Bower's museum one thing I learned was Japan used ivory tusks to make different kinds of things such as art. Attending the Bower's museum helped me to understand what exactly a museum is and offers to the public by showing how much you could learn and look at all the cool artifacts. I hope we could do something like this again.

The Bower's Museum Chinese Exhibit+ Our interest In the Museum= JAPANESE MUSEUM PROJECT!!!

Dear Reader,

Attending the Bowers was really fun, and it also showed me what we should kind of expect from a museum. It showed us cool exhibits and really nice artifacts from the older times of Chinese culture. The Docent was really nice, and she answered most of my questions straightforwardly. It was super fun, going around and seeing all those artifacts from so long ago!

I learned that the Chinese was SUPER superstitious. I also learned that they used to have evil spirits that protected tombs, yet the wooden figures didn't look that scary. The Docent explained that they have a different way of looking at scary things than us now. Another exhibit I liked was a carved ivory tusk. It had really tiny details and the people in then had their own expressions and different things to do. It showed me that they had really good crafstmanship and a high standard of technology. They were the tiniest little details!

Bower's Museum inspired us to make a museum because going around, seeing the exhibits, that would be super cool if there was a smaller museum. Then now we have... the Japnese Projects! I mean, we already saw about the CHinese culture, why don't we try something else? Mr. G helped us make the Japanese Culture Museum, since we already were learning about Japan in English and in History.

Our group did a presentation on Zen Architecture. We made a little Zen House and small Rock Garden. We also had a small poster to present while talkin about it.

Our team was very hardworking, making all of the 3-D items like the house. We researched a lot of information while finding out instructions to make our 3-D items. We all put in a lot of effort to make our presentation good. Our overall collaboration was good.

The general impression of the audience was okay, but weren't that interested. I also think they looked a little bored. Until we passed around the Rock Garden. People liked our presentation, I guess, since some kept looking at our exhibit.

We would've presented more, since our presentation was only a minute and a half. I guess that was partly our fault. We didn't say a lot of information, since we kept thinking our time limit was extremely short. But we got to continue, and that's probably all that I would change.

I think we should've had time to look and read others, beause we had only a few minutes until the presentations started. It was a bit annoying, since I wanted to read more about others. Because we didn't finish a lot of people's presentations, I didn't get to learn about all the topics. So I think we could've stretched out our time looking at exhibits more. I mean, it was a mini museum!

Well I thank you so much for reading my reflection of the project. Overall it was fun, but I think there was just a few things we could've changed. But it was a great experience!

~<(") Bianca Tolentino

Japanese Museums: Bowers and Whitneys

The museum showed the way a museum works, by walking around and being silent. It also showed how people in the past lived. They obtained many artifacts from the 5th century. Being in there was like looking through a telescope and seeing Ancient China! Also, I learned that many Chinese made porcelain, and that's how they got the name "China" glass! It showed us how you can learn visually with nothing more than a person to explain, and I wanted to try that. The group explained about traditional Japanese houses. We built a model house, complete with a Zen Garden backyard! The house was our visual aid, whilst some students used model temples or ikebana arrangements, and some even used theirselves! The other members of my group, in my opinion, were the head of the group. I made a small garden, whereas they built a whole house! I think our presentation was well thought out, and very helpful for the subject. I would try to do a bigger model, if we had more time. All in all, the class was FUN!!!!!!!

Very Exciting Adventure to Japanese Culture

My group had a presentation about the Japanese origami. We talked about the history of origami, and how to make a origami crane. We also talked about how Japanese was influenced by the Chinese with papers and how they started to make origami. Not only Japan, but also many other countries in Asia (such as Korea) started to make origami as well. I think my group worked very hard to make this project. Kayla did not do much of researching, but she did a very neat job of making the poster board. Anna spent hours to make many origami creatures to use during the presentation, and I, Henry, did many researching of the history of origami. Our group had a very strong teamwork and I really enjoyed being in the same group with them. Our presentation had a few problems. We had a little trouble when we were saying our lines, and we also had problems on speaking loud (except for Kayla). So, what I thought after the presentation was that maybe the next time I have a project like this, instead of just memorizing the lines, we should actually practice the whole presentation. So overall, I really enjoyed being in the group and I think it was a very good experience to learn about the Japanese culture.

Japanese Cuisine

My group will present about the Japanese Cuisines. We will explain our pyramid of compare and contrasting Western-adapted Japanese food, to Japanese food. We will also teach the class how to make their own sushi. Nicole researched on about how the Japanese loved appearance. Karisma researched about the Western-adapted food and made the pyramid. I researched about how the cuisine was made and wrote out the pyramid. We worked well at the last second. Next time I do this project, I would choose the topic of the samurai because they are epic, and the whole class had already researched about them. That would make this project so much work. Because of the field trip to the Bower's Museum, Mr. G was inspired to give us this project. Because of this project, I have learned much about the Japanese Culture.

BOWERS MUSUEM

It helped me understand how we are suppose to organize your projects and how we have to present our projects. I learned that jade was the most precious jewel and was hard to carve. It made me feel that my project is good and that I should be proud of what I'm going to present. We presented japanese architechture wich involves Shinto and Buddhist buildings since these two were the main religions. Shinto has gardens and in front of of them are shinto shrines. Gardens are also a big part of architechture because many japanese people have gardens in their houses. I think that katy did well reserching and giving us ideas as to were david gave the group supplies and models of what we were going to built and that was very helpful. I would memorize my lines and try to help my group out with the supplies and give them better more efficient ideas. This experience was cool to me because I got to spend time with my friends and I learned alot about japan architechture.

Bento Box and Education

This is our project
when it wasn't fully
assembled.

The Bower's museum could help our projects because they gave us examples on how to organize our examples and how to write our captions. They didn't help us research wise because they taught us about China while our project was on Japan. I learned about how the symbols on the emporer's clothing had meaning to the ancient gods and dragons that symbolize good luck. They helped us present because as we were having the exhibit, I watched how the docents presented their information and that helped me greatly for our project. Our group did Bento and Education. I didn't understand why lunchbox was with education and schools, however, without any complaints our group did both of the topics. Pete Thiengtrong was a person that did not know what a project is. I said we should make the bento box and assemble it ourselfves. But no!!! He thought that it would take so much time that we should buy it instead. I think that a project is for making not for buying. We didn't do anything else better than the bento box, so I got really angry that he did not understand or even think about my idea. However, Cyrus on the other hand did some work and gave me a lot of tips. He glued papers we printed out on construction paper. He worked hard but during our speech, someone wasn't practicing. Guess who that someone was!!! It was Pete Thiengtrong. When I said, " OK!! Let's practice our speech." Pete wasn't taking this seriously that I got extremely angry. During Science, he even asked me to practice the speech with him. We could have practiced the speech during Social Studies and English, but why did he slack and decide to practice the speech during Science? I just didn't understand what he was thinking. We would do differently about how to make our project by having more creative ideas. I wanted to do a board with information and how to make a bento with descriptions of education. I knew now that although they promised to work hard I knew that I couldn't trust anyone that says that anymore.

This is a Japanese High school.

Bower's Museum or Japanese Exhibit?

The visit to the Bower's Museum greatly helped us in creating the Japanese Museum that the class of 2015 made. The Bower Museum gave many description for each item in the museum. So when we organized the whole Japanese Museum, we automatically knew how to make the whole museum. Out of all the many things I learned at the Bower's Museum, the one thing that I learned was how and why they created the chess peices. The Bower's Museum inspired us by making our own museum, because it was really interesting how they have organized it. My Japanese group presented Japanese folk dance and Japanese hip hop. I talked about the Japanese folk dance, Sendai Suzume Odori, which was a folk dance created at the feast of the construction of the Sendai Castle of the Daimy, Date Masanume. Then we talked about Japanese hip hop and how it was different than the Japanese Folk dance. So we performed each dance, and it showed everyone how the dance was created. Marissa Alvardo didn't do anything during the whole project and presentation, so it was like Katy and I doing the whole project. Katy put the whole board all together, while I gave her all the descriptions and all the notes that we needed. Katy and I also created the whole speech that we need to say during the whole presentation. I think everyone was surprised about my group's posterboard because I brought in a Taiko Drum. While the presentation wasn't the same because Marissa didn't do anything during the whole presentation, so I had to dance all alone during the hip hop. Next time if there is a group project, I would not want to invite Marissa in my group, because I have just found out she is a slacker. I had really fun overall during the whole presentaion, watching other people's exhibit and presentation.

D.I.Y. Japanese Museum!

For my groups' english/history project, our subject was traditional Japanese houses. We presented that the exterior of the houses were made of wood and paper with sliding rice paper doors, and that the traditional houses were short and very small. Also, all of the furniture in the houses were portable and able to fit in a closet, and many Japanese houses had elaborate gardens because they believed that this would tame the spirits that lived in natural objects (Shinto religion).

The teamwork of our group was effective because it helped us to agree on what to do, and that made us finish the project thoroughly. We each assigned ourselves a part of the project: I made the exterior of the house, Shannon Chou decorated the interior, and Ben Espejo created the garden.(Of course, we each researched the subject we were in charge of.) In addition to the effectiveness, the organization of our project contributed to the participation of the whole group.

When we were presenting our exhibit, the audience was silent and calm. Rather than being a polite audience, I think that they were bored and tired, because for the other speeches done by other groups, they were very involved of the presentation and laughed at their clever way of their demonstration. But for ours, well, it was very awkward and it seemed as if we were presenting to ourselves. This taught us that we should be more smart and composed with our innovation next time.

Overall, this experience was very helpful to our knowledge because not only did we learn more about other subjects of Japan, but also got to comprehend the way it would feel if we were the ones who were in charge of a museum exhibit.

The Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 7th grade Museum of Japanese Culture :D

Our group presented about origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. For our exhibit, we folded many origami models and taped them onto a display board. I also brought some examples of modular origami that a friend made, including a dragon and pineapple. Through researching at the Cerritos Library, each member in the group prepared a small speech to explain the contents of the display and interesting facts about origami. Everyone in my group researched, borrowing books and searching on websites. I mostly made the display and the origami models, while my group members gave ideas and suggestions and how to display our exhibit. They showed effort, preparing for all our meetings at the library and bring their laptop to research. Overall, working together, we were able to make a display that showed what origami was and how it looked like, as well as producing a speech to explain about origami. Next time, though, I would try to make the display larger, as well as making more origami models to have a better exhibit. Regarding the speech, instead of each person saying the beginning, middle, and end separately, we could rotate and each say a part in each section. We could also say more interesting facts rather then just throw out boring information all at once.

This experience was very educational and fun in a way. Through everyone elses presentation, I was able to learn a lot more about the culture of Japan, and there were many presentations that had humor as well as really important information. I really enjoyed the 7th grade Japanese culture museum exhibit project. :)

The Good, the Bad, and the Future

Our group (Justin Wu, Maddie Lopez, and Harrison Khoo) presented a video, model, and poster board about the Japanese Gardens. We mentioned the different aspects of a garden, along with a short briefing of its history. To get the information, we used a variety of sources from the nearby library, Internet, and more. I believe that everyone participated equally, creating their own part. Justin and I heavily worked on the short video by getting footage at the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden at CSULB along with editing it. Maddie mostly worked on the model, creating all of the details, such as the stone lanterns, Japanese bridge, and the rock garden. During the presentation, we spoke evenly, and everyone gave interesting facts. Our only problem was that we rehearsed a few times and we stuttered a little bit. I also believe that we mumbled a little bit during our presentation due to lack of practicing. In my opinion, I believe that most of the audience members were fine with our presentation. Though it was overall a bit short, we still gave it all we had along with adding an extra video. Next time we have a similar project, I would practice more with my group members. In additon, I would start working a little earlier instead of waiting until the last minute. Overall, this was a valuable experience that I learned on and benefits me now, and in the future.