“Wabi Sabi” – Finding Beauty in the Simple Things


Teacher: Ms. Erin
Grade Level: Kindergarten                                                                         
Subject Area: Social Studies – Beauty – and Literacy
Time Needed: 45 minutes – 1 hour                                                 
Materials:

• The book Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein (2008)
• White board and marker
• Chart paper
• Globe

Prep:

·         I will have already hung up the pictures that the students drew from the day before on a wall in the classroom.

MMSD Elementary Social Studies Standards Connections for Kindergarten:

• Behavioral:
  • Describe different ways of expressing emotions and feelings.
  • Exhibit an awareness that children grow up in different parts of the world with similar and different experiences.

NCSS Standards:

• Culture
  • We will be exploring the Japanese culture and their concept of “wabi sabi”.
• People, Places, and Environments
  • We will begin to understand more about the Japanese culture by learning about their perceptions of beauty.

UW-Madison School of Education Standards:

• Standard 8: Employs Varied Assessment Processes
  
  
  • I will be both informally and formally assessing the students' understanding of the term “wabi sabi” during this lesson.
    
    

Lesson Objectives:

·         SWBAT explain that the term “wabi sabi” means finding beauty in the simple, everyday, imperfect things after listening to me read the story.

·         SWBAT understand that wabi sabi is a common idea that people of the Japanese culture hold in regard to beauty.

·         SWBAT apply their understanding of wabi sabi when listing ideas of the simple, everyday things they spotted when walking around the school.

Lesson Context:

·         In the previous lesson that took place the day before, the Kindergarteners engaged in a group discussion surrounding what each of them believe is beautiful in the world.  Everyone drew a picture of something/someone that they believe is beautiful and then wrote a description about why this thing that they chose is beautiful to them.

·         Because this five-lesson unit on beauty is part of a much larger unit about individuality that encompasses the entire year, a large component of this whole unit is culture, because this is something in which we all have and it is unique to each of us.  This particular lesson focuses on the Japanese culture and their perceptions of beauty.

Lesson Procedure:  (approximately 45 minutes)

·         This lesson will begin with all of the students sitting on the carpet.  I will ask the students to remind us about what we discussed in regard to beauty the day before.  I will direct the students’ attention over to the wall where I hung up everyone’s pictures of something that is beautiful to them.  We will engage in a quick discussion about how each one of us thinks that certain things are beautiful, and these pictures are some examples of these things, and it is a good thing that each of us has different ideas about what is beautiful in the world.

·         I will then explain to the students that in Japan, people use the term “wabi sabi”.  I will write these words on the board and have the students repeat it.  I will also show students where Japan is on the globe so that they have an understanding of where it is in relation to where we live in the world. 

·         I will ask them if any of them have ever heard “wabi sabi” before.  If anyone has heard this word, I will encourage them to share what they think it means; otherwise, I will explain to the class that I am going to read a story to them that is called Wabi Sabi.  I will tell them that Wabi Sabi is the name of a cat that lives in Japan.  The cat wants to know what its name means, so it goes on a journey to talk to many different people and animals to figure out the meaning of its name.

·         I will then read Wabi Sabi to the class.

·         On each page, there is text written in paragraph form and text written in haikus.  After reading the first page, I will point this out to the students that there are poems on every page.

·         After reading the story, I will ask the students what the cat, Wabi Sabi, found out about its name.  They will explain that the cat found out that wabi sabi means that simple things are beautiful.  I will ask them to give me examples of the simple things that Wabi Sabi found while on her journey.  This concept of “simple things” may be challenging and a little abstract for Kindergarteners to grasp, so I may have to provide them with some of my own examples.  For example, the frog jumping into the river, a bowl, brown leaves on the ground.  I will explain that “simple” means things that we don’t spend a long time looking at; things that we see every day.  I will then ask them if they now have any other ideas of simple things that Wabi Sabi saw on her journey. 

·         I will then tell the students that in the Japanese culture, “wabi sabi” means that people find all of these simple things beautiful.  This doesn’t mean that everyone finds all of these things beautiful, but wabi sabi is a type of feeling that many people of the Japanese culture have.  I will explain that each of us thinks certain things are beautiful (referring to their pictures), but many Japanese people believe simple, normal, everyday things are beautiful.  This is called wabi sabi.

·         I will then explain to the students that we are going to take a quick field trip around and through the school to discover wabi sabi.  We are going to quietly walk outside, around the school, and then walk through the hallways and simply look at everything.  We will look up, down, and all around us and try to spot the simple things that we may walk past every day but not actually notice.

·         I will encourage the students to use all of their senses when we go on our field trip.  The students are already familiar with the five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, and hear), but we will quickly review what they are.  

Lesson Closure:  (approximately 10 minutes)

·         When we have returned from our quick field trip around the school, we will all come back into a circle on the carpet.

·         I will ask the students what were some of the simple, beautiful things that we spotted on our field trip.  I will provide an example of my own if necessary to get the students’ minds turning.

·         As the students list these simple things that they spotted on our walk, I will list each of them on a piece of chart paper.

·         When everyone has had a chance to share, and we have generated a sufficient list of the simple, everyday things that we discovered, I will explain to the students that like we learned in the story that we just read, many people of the Japanese culture believe that these are the beautiful things in the world.  We may agree with this feeling of wabi sabi because we may also think that these things are beautiful, but we may not agree.  Not everyone has to think that all of these things are beautiful.  As we discovered yesterday, we all have different ideas about what is beautiful in the world.

Assessment Strategies:

·         I will be informally assessing the students during our discussion after reading the book Wabi Sabi.  I hope to hear from the students’ responses that they are beginning to understand the idea that wabi sabi is the belief that there is beauty in the simple things in the world.  I hope that our quick fieldtrip will solidify this understanding for the students, so I will be more formally assessing them by listening to the responses they provide when we generate the list of the simple, everyday things that we spotted during our journey.  

Differentiation:

·         This concept of wabi sabi is a very abstract idea.  Therefore, some of the Kindergarten students may need extra support in understanding it.  I think the field trip will help with this, but if students still need help understanding wabi sabi, I will help them generate ideas about the simple things they saw by asking them questions such as, “What was something that you saw outside?” or “Did you hear any sounds outside?”  Hopefully these questions will help the students begin to grasp this concept of wabi sabi more concretely.

Cultural Relevance:

·         This lesson focuses on Japanese culture in general, specifically the Japanese belief of finding beauty in the simple things in life.  However, this lesson also emphasizes that each of us have our own perceptions of beauty, and each of these beliefs should be celebrated.