Oha yo gozaimazu

After school and swim lessons today, Rynn, on her own accord, sat in front of the refrigerator to practice writing her Japanese letters. Since Christmas, the Japanese seems to have really clicked with her and she is enjoying both writing and recognizing the Japanese characters. I'm still trying to figure out how many alphabets are in Japanese. I do know that in the early grades the children learn the phonetic alphabet (Hiragana, I think), and in the later grades they learn Kanji which has symbols closer to the Chinese characters.
The Japanese/Sesame Street alphabet
Below, Eleanor works on her shapes and gives me the hand.
And for some more daily updates...

Oha yo gozaimazu! And so ends the extent of my Japanese. Four months of struggle and I finally have "Oha yo!" (which translates as a polite way to say Good Morning). I realize that my kindergartner Rynn has quite passed my foreign language skills as she giggles at my attempts to speak Japanese. "No, mommy, that's not how you say it." At a birthday party last Saturday for a classmate she thanked the mother in Japanese! The Japanese mother smiled and responded to Rynn and Rynn understood her. I'm so jealous.

Eleanor is thriving at preschool. My only wish was that it was more than two mornings/week. She loves it. They are studying puppets now, and her favorite activity is putting on a puppet show. After making a monkey mask and a cap, my little thespian acted out the old classic CAPS FOR SALE. I don't know what we would have done without preschool for Eleanor this year. Her social energy is endless. Everyday she asks, "Who can come over and play today?."