January 25, 2023: We Love Taiko, O・H・A・N・A!!!

It was such a very breezy, freezy day!  In Buds, we had a splendacious Taiko Day with Moko-sensei :)  Here is what happened today…

Free Play

Decorating Red Paper Plates

Last Friday, we had a couple of friends working for the Buds painting factory and we produced high-quality red paper plates ;)  Today, we had fun decorating those plates in yellow and gold paint!  There were paint brushes, a tea ceremony bamboo whisk and handmade sweet potato stamps curved in a bunny shape.  Come on, not often do we get to use gold paint - it was such a treat being able to make gorgeous golden patterns using various tools.  We wonder what we will be doing for the next step…

Color/Texture Puzzle + Drums + Wooden Blocks

At the floor area, Tamara kindly helped put the road puzzles together so that we could add the wooden blocks and build a whole city around it!  These wooden blocks are quite neat because they also come with wooden cars and trucks with wheels on them.  Our play can expand in so many ways!

A enjoyed trying out different kinds of drums that we have in the classroom.  She was testing how the sound changed according to the shape of the drum and also according to the kind of drumming sticks she chose to use for hitting the drum.  Her musical experiment invited other friends to join the drumming corner and soon, it created a pre-taiko session!  

Over at a small table, some friends enjoyed finding matching two pairs - we had to find either the same colors or the same textures.  Sometimes, we asked for help from Gohsan who patiently sat together with us and when we completed all the pieces, we were super proud of ourselves :)

Taiko Time!

You know what, after cleaning up the classroom, we didn’t gather in the far end of the room but instead where we usually eat our snacks and lunch…?  We greeted each other with our Good Morning song.  That’s when we realized that Kiki was missing from school and instead Marjorie came to help from Petals and we also went through a lot of names because by then, we had more people in the classroom which included: Shelley, Miki-san (the photographer) and Moko-sensei!  While we waited for the classroom to be set up with taiko drums, we sang many songs, one of which was our Hello song.  Afterall, there is more than one way to say, “Hello!”  We said, “Hello” by blowing a kiss and giving each other a high five; we said, “Hello” in Japanese, Chinese, French, Aussie and Turkish!  We also held our hands together in a circle and made a BIG taiko and a small taiko all the while singing,”おおきなたいこドーンドーン,” “ちいさなトントントン.”  

Tadaa!  The next moment, we were finally asked to move into the far end of the room and all the taiko drums were nicely set up!  Even when we were singing and waiting for this moment, many of us were too excited and it was like we had ants in our pants - we couldn’t help stop ourselves from looking over our shoulders to see what was happening.  We each stood in front of a taiko drum with a pair of drumming sticks….and we were all ready to go!  We intently listened to Moko-sensei who is always full of positive energy and she showed us how to make all sorts of sounds (when we hit the middle of the drum, the sound was loud and heavy; when we hit the side of the drum, the sound was high and light) and rhythms (by using the drumming sticks fast or slow)!!!!  Thank you so much Moko-sensei for sharing us your beautiful talent - you made us love playing the taiko drum ♡ 

Outdoor Play

Since our day was filled with so much fun, we didn’t have enough time to go to Step park but we still enjoyed going for a walk around the neighborhood.  We visited the fish pond and the teachers noticed that the soil was frozen (!) and then we walked up the temple ground pretending to be a train chugging up a mountain.  Once we reached the top, we walked, ran, hopped, jumped and skipped around the big friendly tree standing in the middle of the temple ground :) 

Thank you for another Wa(和)-filled Wednesday!

Love,

Buds Class Children