Tag: Target Free Family Saturday

Make Memories at the July Target Free Family Saturday!

Emily Leventhal Leave a comment
Author/illustrator Allen Say will read The Favorite Daughter at the upcoming Target Day! (Image credit: Allen Say)
Author/illustrator Allen Say will read The Favorite Daughter at the upcoming Target Day! (Image credit: Allen Say)

Family comes first at the upcoming Target Free Family Saturday on July 13, from 11am-4pm! Join us for a day celebrating your family’s roots—and make some new memories while you’re at it!

At 3pm, Caldecott Award-winning author/illustrator Allen Say will read his newest book, The Favorite Daughter, about a young hapa girl who finds pride in her heritage with her father’s patient help. The book is based on Say’s experiences with his daughter, Yuriko — who will also attend the reading! Say will be signing copies of The Favorite Daughter, which is available to purchase at the Museum Store.

We have lots of hands-on crafts planned, including a journal to record your favorite family memories, a portrait collage, and an origami camera in Ruthie’s Origami Corner. Then stop for a snack with Kidding Around the Kitchen, where kids can learn to make a salad and salad dressing the whole family will love.

If you’d like a break from the hustle and bustle, we will be screening the documentary Searchlight Serenade, about the big bands formed by Japanese Americans in the World War Two internment camps. Searchlight Serenade will begin at 2pm.

This Target Satuday is in conjunction with our currently running exhibition, Visible and Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History.

Come have fun in the sun at Target Free Family Saturday!

Emily Leventhal Leave a comment

Summer is almost here, and you know what that means – no school, warm weather, and most importantly, the Summer Fun Target Free Family Saturday at the Museum!

Photo by Reid Shimabukuro

Join us this Saturday, June 8, from 11AM to 4PM to kick off the season right.

There’s a whole range of fun activities planned for kids, from story time to making tasty trail mix with Kidding Around the Kitchen. Older audience members will be fascinated by Heroes, storyteller Alton Chung’s one-man play about the courageous actions of Japanese American soldiers during World War II. We’ll also help you celebrate some summer holidays with a few crafts. Come make friendship bracelets for Best Friend’s Day and fun Father’s Day cards in the Origami Corner.

 

Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Nisei WWII Soldiers. Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Finally, don’t miss the last few days of the American Heroes exhibition! This is a great chance to see a Congressional Gold Medal up close and personal. The medal — America’s highest civilian award — was given to the U.S. Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and the Military Intelligence Service for bravely serving their country even as many of their families were interned.

We can’t wait to see you!

Target Free Family Saturday is right around the corner!

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

This is Evan.

Look!  Evan has a new wooden harmonica and cardboard guitar!

Evan makes noise.  Um, I mean, Evan makes music.

Don’t you want to be noisy… um, I mean, musical just like Evan?

Good news!  You can!  Come on down to the Museum this Saturday for our March Target Free Family Saturday. (March 9th).  We’re ready to celebrate music with fun performances and lots of opportunities to make some noise!  On the crafty side of things we’ll be making harmonicas and stringed instruments just like Evan’s.

There will be a drum circle for you to join and performances by the Turath Ensemble, who will perform traditional Middle Eastern music and drumming.  A family day favorite, TAIKOPROJECT will perform as well.  We’re all set for a JANM jam so come join us.

On top of all this musical excitement, we are also so excited to welcome our friend Sonya from the Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Dearborn, Michigan.  One of our current exhibitions, Patriots and Peacemakers: Arab Americans in Service to our Country comes to us from AANM.  Sonya will be leading tours of the exhibition throughout the day with a special talk at 1:30.

Hope to see you!

Special thanks to Evan for such a dynamic demonstration of what fun we will have on Saturday.  He deserves an award for being a good sport.

Join us for Target Free Family Saturday!

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

Our next Target Free Family Saturday is just around the corner!  We hope to see all our friends on Saturday, July 14th for a day filled with activities and crafts.  Our theme is Faces and Places so we will be exploring adventure and travel with a full schedule of programming.

Here’s a sneak peak at our craft activities for the day.  Using pieces of fabric,  customize a bag to take with you when you’re on the go.

You’ll also have a chance to decorate a travel journal so you’ll have a place to capture fun memories by writing and drawing about your summertime adventures.

Hope to see you there!

Reflections from a 9-year-old supporter

Guest Blogger 1 Comment
Photo by Richard M. Murakami

The coolest exhibit at JANM is the paper folding. But I call it origami because I love to learn new origami every time I go to the museum. There’s a beautiful white dress and even shoes that are made by folding paper. Wow! There are masks, dinosaurs and other great things to see. I have been going to JANM for 7 years and I am going to be 9 pretty soon.

Photo by Richard M. Murakami

I mostly go to the Target Free Family Saturdays because there is great stuff to see and do.  And, I get to cook with Lisa.

 

 

Blog written by Pika

JANM friend and longtime Target Free Family Saturday participant

April Target FREE Family Saturday — Monster Mash!

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda Leave a comment

Our next Target FREE Family Saturday theme is Monster Mash! Join us on April 14th from 11am-4pm for a full day of monster related fun & crafts for the whole family. It’s FREE ALL DAY!

At 2pm, artist, toy designer, and unofficial Kaiju* Toy and Art Ambassador Mark Nagata will talk about Kaiju toys and how they are made.

You may remember Mark from his participation in our Dreams to Dreams Custom Vinyl Toy Show in 2008 and the Year of the Labbit Custom Show in 2011.

Mark wrote an article for our Discover Nikkei website in 2007 that shared how he got interested in vinyl toys & monsters. (Read “Beyond Ultraman” >>)

 

In addition to Mark’s talk, join us for monster crafts, Kidding Around the Kitchen‘s Healthy Monster Mash Mix, face painting, caricatures, and origami.

Generously sponsored by Target, these special Saturdays are filled with fun activities giving families unique ways to learn, play, and grow together.

Check the full schedule >>

We’ll be “up in the air” at our next Target Free Family Saturday!

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

Autumn is here and that means JANM’s October 8th Target Free Family Saturday is right around the corner!  We took a little break in September to give everyone a chance to focus on the new school year. (Hope the year is off to a great start for all of our student friends out there!)  Now we’re ready for more fun with October’s “Up in the Air” theme.  Join us for kite making, a balloon artist, origami butterflies, and a tasty activity with Kidding Around in the Kitchen.  I can’t wait!  A complete schedule for the day can be found here.  Hope you can come!

Here’s a sample of one of the activities that we will be doing.  For now, this friendly balloon creature sits by himself in my at my desk but he’s looking forward to making more friends on October 8th!

Gettin’ arty at Target Free Family Day THIS SATURDAY!

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

Saturday (June 11th) is Target Free Family Saturday from 11 am – 4 pm! This month we join our neighbors at MOCA in celebrating Street Art.  We have a full schedule of painting demonstrations, sketching workshops, and art making activities. Our friends from the Mixed Roots Festival will be taking part in the fun with some art making too.

I always have so much fun thinking about art activities for Family Day but, sometimes, something seems like a good idea at first but it needs to be tested and tweaked before putting it into action at Family Day.  Yesterday I tried things out and made a few samples of our poster making and sticker printing activities for Saturday. Fortunately, everything worked out pretty well so, come on over!  We’re ready! I can’t wait to see what the creative minds of our Family Day visitors will come up with.  Hope you’ll join us!