This week we made a little Japanese House inside our classroom. We put down tatami mats and dressed up in yukata, kimono, zori, and geta.
Before entering the tatami room of our Japanese house, we removed our shoes, and we sat seiza-style inside the tatami room.
The students enjoyed playing in the house a lot. They also put toy food into a “jyubako” and “owan” for “osechi”.
Besides our Japanese House, we did “kakizome”. They rubbed an ink stick (sumi) on an inkstone (suzuri) and wrote this year’s zodiac animal character.
They chose from 馬, 午 or うま, and wrote it on “hanshi”. They tried very hard, and their kakizome look so nice.
we also played “fukuwarai”. They were supposed to give directions to the blindfolded player for where to put each face part, like “Up”, “Down”, “A little right”, “A little left”, etc.
However, they were so excited that they ended up shouting “There!”, “No!!”, and “Here!!!”
On the other day, we made “hagoita”. They stuck on many kinds of materials to make their own beautiful hagoita! In addition, because some elderly friends had given us beautiful origami creations, we tried doing origami! The older students tried reading and following the origami instructions, and the younger students tried folding origami along with the teachers.