Learning Hiragana (Basic Japanese writing)

One year, I decided to help my eldest daughter achieve her goal of learning all her Japanese Hiragana symbols.  Both our girls study Japanese at school, and I asked our younger daughter if she would like to learn too - even though she won't study them at school until next year.  She said she would - so I looked into how I could help both girls with this.

I found a few resources online and downloaded some hiragana practice writing sheets for the girls to use.

Each day for the past couple of weeks we've been spending just a

few minutes looking at some symbols - mnemonics to help remember the shape, how to write them, and practice recognising them.  As it's only a few minutes at a time, and they can do it together, they are both enjoying this so far.

I also decided to make some cards to help them. Some shown in the photos above - with the Japanese symbol on one side, and the equivalent 'English' sound on the other side.  These cards they can pick up any time to practice by themselves or with each other.

I'm also making up a memory game as I did for all their times tables. This proved very successful in helping them learn their tables and they love playing the game - which helps immensely! 

(the templates for the times tables memory games come with my free ebook about teaching your kids times tables - free to all Be Our Best Subscribers - click here, or see the link in the sidebar!)

Now we just have to stick to this learning plan - just a few minutes each day and the girls should soon pick up the symbols, then we have to find fun ways to continue practising them regularly so that they remember them!

Do your kids learn languages at school? Do you help them?  Are their any good resources you have found to do this?