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multicultural

Final Release: Hiragana at Home Part 3!!

January 7, 2024

Hi there everyone, we hope that everything is settling in well now that the winter holidays are over!

We also have an announcement.. Hiragana at Home, Part 3 has released!

Hiragana at Home is a home education resource that we lovingly created for our own family. As a mother living in Japan and a second-language speaker of Japanese, I longed for a home education resource for exposing young children to Japanese language in a way that was gentle, simple, play-based, and not time-consuming or filled with busy work.

Whether you live in Japan or overseas, if you want to introduce your preschool-aged (or older) child to hiragana and to teach them the Japanese language from home, this is the program for you. (Adults can also benefit from the extensive song links and book lists!)

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Special Summer Sale!

August 18, 2023

Hiragana at Home, Part 2, is on track to release very soon!! 

Hiragana at Home is a one year home education program for learning hiragana (the Japanese language) using a downloadable PDF schedule that includes a variety of fun resources and activities. It is preschool-level, but can be adapted for older children as well. 

Whether you live outside of Japan and desire to immerse your young child in a second language, or live in Japan and want a home education alternative to preschool and learning hiragana (the Japanese phonetic “alphabet”), Hiragana at Home is a fun play-based option that builds language skills and fluency through a variety of multi-sensory resources and ideas.

This second installment of the Hiragana at Home program will feature 160 additional song links, as well as an extensive seasonal and theme-inspired booklist, and lots of new activities! 

If you have already purchased our 3-part program, you can expect the Part 2 digital file resources to appear in your Gumroad downloads soon!

If you have not yet purchased our program, you will have an opportunity for a special discount during our summer “back-to-school” sale! Whether you prefer to start school from the spring as is traditional in Japan, or in the autumn, our program is designed to be used at any time of the year!

From today through August 22nd, 2023 at 11:59pm (Japan time), you can visit our product page (see here) and use the code: TERM2 to receive 10$ off of our 50$ program. 

The price includes Part 1 (already released), Part 2 (scheduled to release next week!), and Part 3 (releasing at the end of this year).

To learn more about our program, see here. To purchase Hiragana at Home, click here

Summer Announcements

July 11, 2023

Summer is here, and it has been eventful at the Haruna Home!

We spent much of spring in the garden planting and enjoying the good weather. We also traveled to the city twice so that my husband could do some vocal workshops, as well as meeting up with friends and relatives.

In April through June I was in the third trimester, so I spent the latter part of pregnancy taking daily walks and swimming in the public pool, all in the hopes of encouraging our second-born to make his way into our arms..

But, despite our efforts, he ended up being born at 41 weeks and 2 days.. well past his “due date”!

Our second son, Josiah, was born on June 30th.

We are so happy and grateful for the addition to our family!! I am currently taking it easy during postpartum recovery, but look forward to getting outdoors again soon as a family of four.


In Japan rainy season is now well underway, and the hum of the first cicadas can be heard – a signal that hotter days are yet to come. “Bugs” is also the theme of a unit that will be featured in Hiragana at Home, Part 2!

The Part 2 release of our home-education hiragana program for children is planned for sometime around mid-August, no later than August 22nd. If you already purchased the Hiragana at Home program at Gumroad, you will be able to download Part 2 from your downloads purchase page, as soon as the Part 2 download becomes available.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at our Instagram, theharunahome!


How has your summer been going so far?

Leave a comment below!

Giveaway Announcement!!

April 14, 2023

Special giveaway announcement!!

The Spring Release Sale of Hiragana at Home has ended..

But, if you missed the sale and would still like to get our preschool-level home education language program at a reduced price, you might have an opportunity to get it for free!!

We have partnered with the blogger Hiragana Mama, and are offering one person the complete Hiragana at Home program (a one year program with a 50$ value) for free!! If you are interested in entering the giveaway, please head over to her blog at the link below!

Enter the Giveaway at Hiragana Mama’s Post, here!

Or, to purchase the full Hiragana at Home program right now, click here!

Hiragana at Home: Spring Sale

April 4, 2023

The Spring Release of Hiragana at Home, Part 1 is nearly here!!

As long as there are no technical difficulties, we plan to release Part 1 on April 5th, 2023 (Japan time)!

You will be able to purchase the complete Hiragana at Home program at a discounted rate from April 5th though April 7th (Japan time)!! If you purchase the complete program, you will receive Part 1 as a digital file on April 5th, 2023 (Japan time), and will receive Parts 2 and 3 later during the year as they release.

Hiragana at Home will normally be sold for 50$ (USD), but will be available for 30$ for ONLY three days, on April 5th-7th 2023 (Japan time). Then the price will go back up to 50$ for the one year program!

When the program goes live, we plan to release a discount code that you can apply at checkout to reduce the price during the special sale term!

We have also published **brand new** pages on our site about the program, which you can find under the new “Shop” tab in the top bar of our site. Or, click the links below!

Shop page

Hiragana at Home: Overview page

Hiragana at Home: FAQ page

If you plan to purchase the program and use it from this April, you can also DM us on Instagram (@theharunahomestead) for a preview of the supply and booklist of the first week of the program to help you prepare.

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Coming Soon: Hiragana at Home!!

February 8, 2023

I’ve been keeping a secret!!

We are excited to announce the upcoming release of a brand-new home education resource:

Hiragana at Home!

As a mother living in Japan and a second-language speaker of Japanese, I longed for a home education resource for exposing young children to Japanese language in a way that was gentle, simple, play-based, and not time-consuming or filled with busy work.

Home-educating a bilingual child should not mean that their language skills have to suffer!

However, there are few home-education resources available for people who desire to teach the Japanese language to young children (including overseas), and little support is available to families in Japan who decide not to enroll their child in preschool.

Eventually, I realized that if I wanted a home education program for our family that met my expectations, as well as would allow our children to thrive without losing out on their language development, I would have to make it myself – and so, I did!

**Note: this post was updated on March 24th, 2023, to reflect updates regarding the spring 2023 release!!**

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Our International Love Story

July 31, 2021

In honor of our 5th wedding anniversary on July 30th, it seems like the perfect opportunity to share our love story with our readers!

The post below was originally written in February 2017, and appeared at a previous blog that is no longer in use. The title then was “Raindrops and Shared Umbrellas: On an anniversary and the story of a year’s happiness”.

Now firmly out of “newlywed” territory, I can say that marrying Masashi is something I would choose again and again a thousand times, and all of the challenges we have faced together have made our marriage even stronger and more beautiful than it was in the beginning.

Our love story is no longer just a story of a year’s happiness, but five years of numerous experiences and emotions, sickness and health, grounded firmly in love.

I enjoy revisiting what it was like at the beginning, and am thankful for how God brought us together.

To reminisce with us, please read below!

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Christmas and Shogatsu in Japan

December 26, 2019

This post was originally published at The Haruna Family Blog.

With Christmas ending and our winter vacation just beginning, I’ve been remembering my first Christmas in Japan before I was married. That first year, I didn’t really know what to expect. 

Many people think of Christmas as being universally celebrated, but it still feels somewhat new in Japan.

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