Hula Hula

Aloha!

That’s how they say hello and goodbye in Hawaii. We travelled there because they have lots of beaches there. We also said there are beaches in Nusa, Australia and in New York. In the morning we came in and enjoyed working on our lei. We listened to peaceful Hawaiian music and sat on the beach towel as we made our beautiful flowers with red and yellow crepe paper. It was hard to pull the paper apart to make a fluffy flower so we needed to be patient and concentrate. Some of us that are finished wanted to wear it for dance class and the others will work on it more tomorrow.

Maryna came in for the last dance class of this semester. We started off with some stretching and warmup. Then we danced to some of our favorite songs, like the scarecrow song and BINGO. We moved our fingers with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and ended with a little tendu. Thank you Maryna for dancing with us!

After dance and snacks it was circle time! Kai asked us if we know what the name of the dance is called in Hawaii. Akira demonstrated it by showing us with his arms. Yes that’s it! It’s called hula dance. Kai told us a couple of the origins of hula but nobody really knows where it came from. We do know that men used to dance the hula before they went into battle and now it’s mostly the women’s dance. They used hula for worship and storytelling. Every song has a story to it. We looked at the traditional clothes and instruments and compared them with the modern hula dance. Kai showed us the flower on the back of his shirt and asked us what it is. We told him, “Ohana!” Yes that’s right and Ohana in Hawaiian means “Family”. On the different islands in Hawaii they have a different special flower that they use for their lei. In Ohana school what kind of flower do we use for our lei? M answered, “Red and Yellow” and Am answered, “Tissue paper!” They’re both right- we have our own special flower. Now that we know a little about the history of hula it’s time to dance! We looked at the picture to pick a move we wanted to do. Re picked “Kawelu” This is a basic step of moving one foot forward and back and switching. Then Z picked “Kaholo”, this is another basic step of moving side to side. Sayaka showed us some tips as well. She said when we hula we always have to smile, keep our upper body still and move. We have some basic steps down and we moved to some hand gestures. We practiced how to catch a fish by pulling a rope and moving sideways and bringing the rain by moving our hands down while waving our fingers. We also learnt the movements for fish, sun and wind. We need to learn these moves for our luau tomorrow!

We’re so fortunate for the cloudy and cool day. We miss having water play but at least we get to go to the park! We played volleyball and ran around the green area. Hope you enjoyed the day!

Love,

Petals Class