As a school with a diverse group of students representing different nationalities, students from The Grange get a chance to experience different celebrations from all over the world. In today’s blog, we will be sharing how our Japanese students recreated the summer festival Natsumatsuri (Summer Festival) (夏祭り) in their own classroom!
The Summer Festival is one of the major celebrations in Japan. During the festival, there will be many events such as festive dances, fireworks, magic show, street stalls, to name a few. Our Japanese teacher, Ms. Yuki, shared that it was a pity that the annual Summer Festival could not happen this year due to the pandemic. However, this inspired her to create The Grange’s own version of a mini “Natsumatsuri”. Together with the students, she put together various games that are commonly found at the festival. The props and games were created from recycled materials found at our recycling corner. Ms. Yuki even prepared a Yukata outfit (usually worn during Summer) for the students to make the whole experience a complete one! Read on to find out more about what went on at The Grange’s Summer Festival!
Ms. Yuki and student preparing the materials for the fishing game made out of recycled cardboard, paper clips, stick and string.
Students racing against time and competing for the highest points
Serious and competitive faces
Who has a bigger hand…? The participant has to pick up as many bottle caps to win this game
The final game… a shooting game which got the boys really excited. Participants have to loop a rubber band across the shooting mechanism made out of cardboard. To fire the rubber band, the participant has to pull apart the sides of the shooting mechanism. The person who shoots down most standing cardboard wins.
Trying his best to aim for the cardboard with the highest score
Aiming for the cardboard with the highest score
And we have a winner! Their scores were 1049 VS 1162!
Ms. Yuki and Year 3 Japanese students
The students enjoyed the games and the atmosphere felt very lively with all the decorations around the classroom. To mimic the awards for winners at the recent Tokyo Olympic, Ms. Yuki even made medals for the students using recycled foil paper and ribbons.
Thank you to the Japanese students and Ms. Yuki for making such an effort to bring the Summer festival “alive” at The Grange!