More Crafts

You probably don't want to read another post about making wreaths with little kids. I wasn't all that excited to do it for 3 days straight. But then I got to make traditional Japanese crafts! Yesterday with the fourth-graders, I made miniature kadomatsu, which apparently you put outside your house on either side of your door for New Years. Mine are outside my door! (Even though real ones are much bigger and these will probably get destroyed by the elements).

Today the fifth-graders used a traditional rope-making technique to make their wreaths. They used the chaff from the rice harvest. It was surprisingly like straw that comes from wheat or whatever it is we have in the US. It was somewhat difficult and a bit tiring, but something about it being a rope-making technique excited the nerd in me.

As a bonus, in the afternoon I played "traditional Japanese games" with the third-graders. I put it in quotes because one of the games was London Bridge is Falling Down--same tune and everything. The first game was one that some of my chuugakko students showed me one afternoon. It's like a non-violent version of Red Rover. The second involved everyone walking in a circle while one person sits in the center with their eyes closed. Everyone sings a little rhyme as they walk that ends with "who is behind you". (As an aside, I'm really excited I managed to understand that).Then they stop and the person in the middle has to guess who is behind him based on what he hears that person say.

Afterwards they asked me to teach them American games. Being put on the spot, unprepared, and in a small space (we were in the classroom) I very quickly remembered the circle handslapping games of my youth--Down By the Banks of the Hanky Panky (or however it goes). Then I taught them Ring Around the Rosie. Duck Duck Goose might have been a better option, but for some reason it didn't come to me until right after we were done. If we had been outside, I would have opted for Red Rover. Oh well, perhaps next time...