Tag: family festival

2013 Oshogatsu Family Festival

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda 1 Comment

Celebrate the New Year & the Year of the Snake with JANM!

Join us on Sunday, January 6 from 11am – 5pm for a BIG day full of family-friendly fun activities, crafts, and cultural performances…and it’s all FREE!

We will have a lot of everyone’s favorite activities, plus Year of the Snake-themed crafts & more!

Here are a few highlights to look forward to:

– Mochitsuki performance & demonstration by Kodama Taiko

– Common Grains returns with the Onigiri Design Contest. Last year, this was so popular that we ran out of rice! This year, we’ll also have a rice tasting and you can purchase different varieties of rice. [Learn about how Common Grains got started in this article by founder Sonoko Sakai on our Discover Nikkei site: Common Grains]

– World-renowned candy artist Shaun Ichiyanagi also returns to make snake sculpture candy! (Everyone can watch, but the candy snakes are for children only & will be raffled off at the start of every hour)

– Learn how to play taiko with Bombu Taiko

– Reptacular Animals presents a Reptile petting zoo! Come meet real snakes and other cool reptiles!

– Special fukubukuro (lucky bag) sale at the Museum Store

Check janm.org/oshogatsufest for full schedule >>

Here are some photos from last year’s Oshogatsu Family Festival taken by volunteer Richard Watanabe:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While you’re here, take advantage of the free admission all-day to check out Giant Robot Biennale 3 before it closes on January 20!

 

Summer Festival coming up this Saturday!

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda Leave a comment

14th Annual Summer Festival on the Courtyard - Japanese American Olympics. Saturday, August 11, 2012. 11am-5pm. FREE ADMISSION ALL DAY!

Our 14th Annual Summer Festival on the Courtyard is this weekend!

Sporty Courtyard Kaeru waving JANM flagSummer Festival is our BIGGEST event of the year. We’re preparing a full day of FREE family fun. If you couldn’t make it to London for the Summer Olympics, come out to JANM for the JA Olympics!

LOTS of free activities and crafts to keep kids of all ages busy all day, or just stop by in between checking out the various Nisei Week and Tanabata Festival festivities going on throughout Little Tokyo.

We’re especially excited about our Jan Ken Po Tournament, JA Trivia Challenge, and Origami Design Contest! Compete for your chances to win a special JA Olympics medal & prizes!

Jan Ken Po Tournament

P.S. This month is also your last chance to come check out our very popular Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami and Xploration Lab 2012 exhibitions before they close on August 26th!

It’s our last Target Free Family Saturday of 2011

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

Bring the family to the Museum this Saturday, December 10th as we finish off the year by designing wrapping paper and making paper snowflakes to go with this chilly weather that we’ve had the past couple of days.

We’re big fans of origami here at the Museum so we’ll also be making origami hopping frogs.  After you fold yours, have a contest with folded frogs made by other visitors to see how far they can hop.

If frogs aren’t your thing, we’ll also have an area for you to sharpen your origami skills making other fun things. Join us for these activities as well as Japanese gift wrapping workshops throughout the day.  A full schedule can be found here.

As an added bonus, if you come on Saturday, you’ll have a chance to join artist Patrick Nagatani at 2:00 pm for a gallery tour of his exhibition Desire for Magic: Patrick Nagatani currently on view in the Museum’s Weingart Foundation Gallery.

Finishing off 2011, we look ahead to 2012 for another year of family fun, which we hope you’ll join us for.  Our first event of the year is our big Oshogatsu New Year celebration on Sunday, January 8th.  Bring the whole family as we celebrate the Year of the Dragon! [Check out the Oshogatsu Family Day schedule of activities >>]

Come back on February 11th for our next Target Free Family Saturday and then again on March 10th for Target Free Family Day as well as a celebration of the opening of our next exhibition Folding Paper: the Infinite Possibilities of Origami.  See you soon!