Today at elementary school, I taught a few classes, as usual. But I also got to participate in two really cool activities.
First was watching the 6th grade students do calligraphy. (I grabbed a brush, pointed it out the window, and shouted “expecto patronum!” They thought that was pretty funny.) Of course, everyone learns to write with pens and pencils these days, so using a brush to write out characters is quite challenging. If you have too much ink or too little ink, it causes problems. If you press the brush down too hard, the strokes are too thick; if you don’t press hard enough, they’re too thin. For some strokes you need to stop before lifting the brush, and for others you need to lift the brush while it’s still in motion. Finally, if the motion isn’t smooth, the end result doesn’t look very good. I was impressed with a few of the students practicing kanji in the margins of the practice sheets.
Then just now, at the end of the day, I got to play taiko with the 5th grade students in the gymnasium. The teacher put me in front of one of those big drums, and handed me a couple sticks, and then had the students show me how it was done. First, make a Y with your legs, and bend your knees a bit to get your waist at the right level. Grab the taiko sticks with your thumb and index finger in a ring, and let the other fingers just rest on it. If you grab the drumstick too tightly, the stick won’t bounce off right and it will sound off. Finally, unlike drum line in band, you have to put all your energy into it; make dramatic motions with your arms, start with your arm all the way in the air, and then come down with a SMACK. The students taught me a couple rhythms, and then we played as a group for awhile. The students rotated out and changed positions while playing. It was pretty tiring, but I had a blast.
I really enjoy reading about what you are doing on a daily basis and with your students at school. More, please! Also, how did your student do in the speech contest? And is the weather getting colder there?