During the first week of this year, we held the last week of our Winter Program 2026. We all enjoyed playing with various traditional Japanese toys.
We teachers showed the students traditional Japanese toys such as daruma-otoshi, spinning tops, hagoita, otedama, etc.
Everyone enjoyed playing with them. After that, we focused on how to make their own version of each toy.
Firstly, they each made a kite. The older students used a sheet of plastic and stuck on straw frames.
Seal Class students folded large origami paper to make their own kite, and the youngest students drew pictures on a paper kite.
After that, they all ran around in the park to fly their kites.
Next, they made spinning tops. The older students made Beyblade-style tops which need a string to make them spin faster.
It was a great hit with everybody, and they even made a “fighting ring” to compete with each other.
The rest of the week they tried using different kinds of bottle caps, or they made their stick longer or shorter or their string longer or shorter, etc, to try to make their top spin longer and steadier!