Team taiko

Wow, did we have a lot of exercise today? And we still had so much energy afterwards too. You know why we had so much exercise? Yes, it was Team Taiko day. We not only played taiko but we walked up the steep hill to the Azabu Kumin centre and then we walked all the way back to school. Phew! We are so strong and loved our Team Taiko workshop with Moko sensei.

We arrived at school and had free play at the tables and on the carpet and of course, we went straight to the office to “work”. After an early morning snack time, we headed off with some of our mums to our taiko drumming workshop. We had our “hachimaki” (bandanas) intact and were sooooo excited. When we got to the hall, we went down to the basement and waited in the foyer for our Buds friends to complete their class. And then it was our turn. Many of us knew how to play taiko because we learnt last year when we had our taiko workshops, so we arrived all raring to go!

We were glad to have our mums with us so that they could help us and enjoy playing taiko too. Some of us wanted to play with them and some of us wanted to just play on our own. We learnt “don don” which is when you hit on the skin which is the center of the drum and “ka ka” which is the rim of the drum or outer edge. They make different sounds when you hit on them. We could feel the boom boom going through our bodies when we hit on the skin.

We also learnt how to hit the sticks together and make a clicking sound. We made a mountain shape with our sticks above our heads and shouted yaaaaaaah! It was a great feeling. Our warm up exercises were so much fun. We had to shake our right hand in the air, then our left hand, then our right leg and then our left leg; all separately. Then we had to shake them together. This meant that we had to jump off the ground in order to shake both of our legs at the same time. We made like a star shape with our bodies.

We played a game called “picnic”. After hitting the drum with our “don don ka ka” rhythm, Moko sensei shouted “picnic”. We had to click our sticks in the air and walk around our drum. She said that our drum represented the park where we were having a picnic. We also watched Kaitlyn, Alexis’s mum and Shelley together with Moko sensei and her assistant, Yuta, performing a piece called “Echo of the Ocean”. They were pretty amazing at drumming.

We hope you are enjoying seeing our pictures of us in action. When we returned to school, we still had energy to go to the park and run around and play with our friends. The park was quite busy but the warm sunshine and fresh air were great for us; especially since we still had so much energy.

We forgot to tell you that Moko sensei was worried that we were tired so she taught us how to make a chair using our taiko sticks. We had to balance really carefully on them.

When we returned to school Luka did “Show and Tell”. His “Show and Tell” was a photo in a frame of him and his grandma’s dog called “Chocolat”. We asked him if his name was Chocolate but he said: “No, Chocolat”. We understood that this is the name for chocolate in French. He told us that Chocolat had died and went to the dog hospital. We asked him if he cried when Chocolat died but he said that he didn’t. Then Shelley asked us what happens when you die and Lilian said:

“You can’t move anymore, we you are dead”. We thought about this and were actually too hungry to continue the discussion. Our teachers think that these discussions are really important to have. In fact, at the end of the day when Shelley was teaching Jennifer and Ava from Flowers class, the word “old” came up in conversation. Shelley asked them both what they thought old was. Ava Grace who celebrated her 5^th birthday today said: “Old is when you are nearly dead”. So Shelley said: “Who do you know who is old?” Ava replied: “Oh, like my grandma”.

Thanks Moko sensei for a great Taiko workshop today. We loooooove learning with you and look forward to our next one.

Here we are all together with our families who joined us today.

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel.