LCA Kokusai Elementary School - Shizuoka, Japan
September 01, 2009LCA Kokusai Elementary School is a private Japanese school located in Shizuoka, Japan that follows the Japanese National Curriculum in a bilingual setting. LCA conducts all their lower grade classes in English and as they progress to around 6th grade, the classes are taught in Japanese. This way the children can speak proficient English and they were able to understand everything Jake was saying! Music is very important to their curriculum and they even performed some musical numbers for Jake.
Jake began talking to the students about music, Hawaii, and his ukulele. Then he played “Let’s Dance” for the students, which was then followed by a performance by the students themselves. The 4th, 5th, and 6th graders all sang a song for Jake entitled, “Sakura”. Then the 4th graders followed with an energetic performance of a song from the musical “Grease”! The student’s finale was a medley of songs from “The Sound of Music” where they sang and danced along with the rhythm.
After the talented students exited the stage, Jake went up and shared his passion of the ukulele. He first showed them the various sounds that the ukulele can produce and how one can transform it into different instruments. One instrument he demonstrated, with “Me and Shirley T,” was the drums. Jake played some more tunes like “Sakura” and “Crazy G” then ended with the theme from “Hula Girls” to demonstrate how the ukulele can be used as a lead instrument. For the grand finale, the students took the stage once again and performed as a recorder ensemble with Jake on the uke.
After this indoor event, Jake ventured outside the building and spoke with the kindergarteners. Along with the sounds of nature, Jake played ukulele for the students who would join in clapping during the songs.
The children asked all different types of questions about his ukulele and Jake allowed them to try strumming it. The students were so energetic and were dancing, clapping and jamming to Jake’s music. Music has the great ability to uplift and excite people! Mahalo to everyone at LCA Elementary!
