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Hello! Welcome to our family's blog. Check here for photos, videos, and stories of Papa, Mama, Luke, and Max. You can also follow us on various social networking services by clicking one of the links below, or subscribe to our video podcast by searching for "Talandis Family in Japan" on iTunes. Thanks for stopping by and staying in touch!

TFiJ33: Luke & Max’s 1st vegetable garden

For his summer English project, Luke uses English to tell the story of a vegetable garden he and his sister Max planted this past spring. Shinobu got the idea rolling, which was to create a small, manageable garden that the kids to help out with. This sort of “micro gardening” is currently VERY popular in Japan. Parents are using it as a way of teaching about and introducting nature into their kids’ lives, and since many people live on small plots of land, it also has taken off because it’s very easy and manageable. As for this video project, I wanted a way to kill two birds with one stone- share a family experience and help Luke practice his English. Seemed like getting Luke more involved in our family podcast was the way to to. I wrote the script, Luke worked hard to learn the lines, then we spent a couple of afternoons recording and filming. I also printed the script with a “schoolbook” font so that he would have some writing practice as well (by tracing over the letters). Overall it was a lot of good practice for Luke! He’s not totally smooth, but it’s so cool to hear him speak in only English for an extended period. This is a very rare thing, since he lives in a Japanese world most of the time. I’ve been finding it hard to motivate him to use English, so I’m hoping this project idea works out. If it does, I have some ideas for other projects. . I hope you like this little story. If you have some words of encouragement for Luke, please leave comments. This will give Luke some good reading practice!

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