I have to talk about Japan to some elementary students. What should I talk about?

Question:

Since I have studied abroad in Japan twice and also a Japanese major in college, I was invited to talk about Japan to about 20-30 elementary students. I have some stuff I will be showing them that I bought or acquired when I was studying in Japan, but what else should I talk about to them?

I was planning to teach them how to count from 1-10, maybe easy phrases like: Thank you, sorry, etc.

What else would be good? I think after I talk about stuff, it will just be open-ended where they could ask me questions about Japan.

I think I have to talk with them for about an hour or so.

Any tips would be great! Thanks.

Answer:

You will obviously want to change it based on their grade level, but I once did the same thing for some 2nd graders.

Things they may be interested in:
Anime/manga (especially ones that they watch on TV)
video games
Clothing (uniforms, regular clothes, special clothing)
Food (I mean - EVERYONE loves food)
Transportation - how do kids get to school, how do people travel, etc.,
Simple geography - show how Japan compares to your home country in size, where it is on a map, etc.,

You may want to teach them some origami - its easy and something they can show their parents. Maybe teach them how to use chopsticks and play a game where they have to try and move beans with them.

Play some Japanese games with them - for example daruma ga koronda, fruit basket, or karuta.
Play some Japanese music - traditional and modern.
Have them practice writing some characters (hiragana or easy kanji).

I wouldn't rely on the questions to take a lot of time. Sometimes my junior high students don't ask much of anything. I remember having guest speakers come in high school and even university and the Q&A sessions were often very quiet.

You may want to show some video clips, especially good if you can find some from the travel channel or anything educational. That is more likely to be accurate than something from an anime/drama.

Just try and think of things that will apply best to the age group. Obviously the younger kids will have less of an attention span.

If they are older you may want to talk a little about the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.