To enrich the students’ spring break, Fo Guang Shan Temple of Toronto Chinese School organized an online handcraft event – assembling Ukuleles via Zoom Meeting in the afternoon of March 20, 2022. Over 30 attendees, including Advising Monastic, teachers, parents and students, gathered together online to learn to design and decorate their Ukuleles. Students also learned the basics of playing  Ukulele. 

The event started with the speech from Venerable Ru Xing, the Advising Monastic of FGS Temple of Toronto Chinese School. She shared a Buddhist story from Agama Sutras about playing musical instruments. Ven. Ru Xing inspired students to manage life and study like tuning the strings of the instrument, to make it just right and well-balanced. 

Dean Mrs. Wang introduced the class rules and teacher assistants – Alissa, Robin, QinLing and Sean. There are three sessions in this handcraft activity: assembling,designing and playing the Ukulele. 

The teacher assistants prepared video tutorials to demonstrate the assembly essentials and interacted with the students to answer their live questions. In the second session, they presented their design patterns and encouraged everyone to personalize their Ukuleles. 

In the third part, Robin played a happy birthday song to the participants whose birthdays are in March. Then, everyone used their own assembled and painted Ukuleles to practice playing the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."  

The event ended with cheers and fulfilments, and it provided a great opportunity for parents and students to collaborate with each other during the Spring break. 

By Irene Chai