XLIS Primary 4 Provocation – Chinese Shadow Play

XLIS P4 Provocation – Light and sound help us experience the world – Chinese Shadow Play  

 

Video by:
CHINESE SHADOW PUPPET ANIMATION (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRVu9AOhng&t=4s)

 

Key Concept：Function

Lines of Inquiry: How light and sound works.

Provocation Questions: 

“What is light and sound?”

“Where does light and sound come from?”

“What are the uses of light and sound in our daily lives?”

 

In general, the home field of education is always the classroom. But knowledge is boundless, and the world is a book. So, aside from the classrooms, we advocate that children should go to theaters, botanical gardens, museums, and every corner of the world to perceive and grow in the exploration of everything.

 

In the PYP, we use a lot of terminologies that others would call “best practice”. However, there is a word that pops up quite a lot: Provocation. Provocation plays an important role in the inquiry process. In the PYP, we highly value students’ prior knowledge and experiences, and it is only when students connect their prior knowledge to what they are learning that they are able to develop conceptual understanding and make meaning of the world around them. Students should be examining their opinions and ideas as a result of the provocation.

 

The transdisciplinary theme of Primary 4 Unit 6 is Where We Are in Place and Time. Our central idea is, Light and sound help us experience the world. Primary 4 homeroom teachers will collaborate with the PYP Mandarin teachers in this unit. We will explore the mysteries of sound and light together and explore the role and influence of sound and light on everything in the world and our lives.

 

Children are naturally full of curiosity about everything, and have a strong thirst for knowledge. With teacher’s guidance, P4 students can display their enthusiasm and initiative in learning through practical activities and can fully exercise and cultivate their ability to comprehensively apply the knowledge they have learned. In the Provocation activities of this light and sound unit, our PYP Mandarin teachers specially invited Mr. Wang Ke, a shadow puppet sculptor from the Ming and Qing Shadow Puppet Art Museum in Xi’an, and Mr. Wang Xiaoling, a shadow puppet artist, to walk into the Blackbox theater of Xi’an Liangjiatan International School. They brought wonderful shadow play demonstrations and explanations to P4 students.

 

After watching the fairy tale and Chinese idioms stories of “Little Sheep Crossing the Bridge” and “Look for a noble steed according to its picture”, P4 students raised their own questions about the shadow puppet show:

 

Ms.Wang introduced to the students that Shadow play is an ancient Chinese folk traditional art, which is also called “Donkey Shadow.” According to historical records, it began in the Warring States Period, flourished in the Han Dynasty, and experienced the dominance of the prosperous period in the Song Dynasty. Shadow puppetry has a history of more than 2,000 years since it was recorded in writing. It mainly performs stories with silhouettes of characters made of animal skin or cardboard. The performance of shadow puppetry is to express the plot by the moving images projected on the white curtain through the engraved shadow figures or props, showing the plot. The movements and moods of characters and animals, as well as the changes of various natural phenomena.

 

Wang Ke is from Huayin City, Shaanxi Province. Engraver of Ming and Qing Shadow Puppet Museum in Xi’an. Influenced by his father since he was a child, he loves calligraphy and painting, and is especially good at shadow puppet sculpture. After six to seven years of uninterrupted study, he has become familiar with the 24 procedures of traditional shadow puppets.He is able to independently complete a series of work from leather making to carving, coloring, stitching and so on. He explained the history of shadow puppets and restore the incomplete shadow puppets of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to show the traditional shadow puppets. In April 2022, he was named the first Master of Arts and Crafts in Shaanxi Province.

 

Mr.Wang told the students that although shadow puppets in various places have their own characteristics, the production procedures of shadow puppets are mostly the same. Usually, it needs to go through leather selection, leather making, drawing, drafting, engraving, coloring, sweating and ironing, and embellishment. Waiting for eight processes and hand-carving more than 3,000 knives is a complicated and wonderful process.

 

Shaanxi shadow puppetry is made of high-quality cowhide, which is processed into a translucent shape by soaking, scraping, grinding, and pushing, and then carefully crafted through multiple processes such as carving, dyeing, and ironing. Black, red, green, yellow, and yellow are used for coloring. Five kinds of purple mineral pigments, multi-layer rendering on both sides of the front and back, and various coloring techniques. Shaanxi shadow puppets have high transparency, and the colors are gorgeous after the light is projected; The leather is thin and easy to handle, and it is flat and not easy to deform.

 

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Author:

Winnie Huang (Primary Chinese Language teacher)