parlez-vous japanese?

Today marked a new milestone in our homeschooling adventure. When we first started our home school, we tried to have a daily spanish lesson. The two oldest boys enjoyed the challenge, but the younger children were restless to the point of mutiny. So my fantasy of learning to speak spanish as a family was put on a shelf along with my dream of becoming a world-class figure skater. As the year has progressed, we have occasionally reevaluated our learning goals and methods. Most recently, we have decided to study one subject (or block of subjects) each day. Consequently, on Tuesday, in addition to studying art and music, we now have added foreign language studies. While it would be easier to mandate Spanish lessons for the entire crew, I believe that kids learn best when they have some choice in the process. The outcome of our new schedule is that I am now directing lessons in French (Mark), Japanese (Eli), and Hebrew (Diana). Thank heavens for the internet. Mark has already learned the alphabet and numbers one through seventy. Eli is learning cool Japanese phrases equivalent to "what's up?". And Diana spent at least one hour laboriously copying the Hebrew alphabet. Sugoi! Translation: Cool!