On the morning of August 21st (Tuesday), we held a paper bag mask making workshop with students from the art club at Hinode Junior High School in Itako City. Paper bags are easy to obtain, easy to manipulate, and a familiar everyday item for everyone. In this workshop, students made their own original masks out of paper bags, and took photos wearing them in various poses. The task of making eye holes at the correct position cannot be done alone. One person must wear the mask and point to where their eyes are, and the other person then marks those points on the mask. This ensures the holes will be in the right place. Such cooperative tasks, although small, are very important too.







Once the masks were finished, the students tried them on and also made their friends and teachers wear them too. It was a day full of fun and laughter as they enjoyed seeing the surprising designs thought up by their friends. After taking a group photo to remember the day, the students wrote short essays about their experience, and offered suggestions about how to improve the materials and tools we used. This workshop also served as a practice run for the Halloween workshop that will be held on October 31st (Thursday) for students from both the Hinode elementary and junior high schools. Students from the two schools do not have much interaction with each other, and we hope these workshops will be an opportunity for strengthening and broadening bonds for the community, by letting these students share memories together. The next workshop will have 100 participants in total, making it a totally different scale to this one. We learned from this workshop that we need to ensure we are very well prepared in advance. (Kamiura)