Last week I helped my teacher with a chanoyu presentation at an art camp for grades 1-3 at a museum in San Antonio. It's a challenge to create a sense of tranquility in an unfamiliar place and in a short period of time.

We plan weeks in advance and make a check list to assure that we pack all the things necessary. Once we arrive at a location it takes over an hour to set up plus the same amount of time to carefully pack everything away.

This time we decided to do Wakei Chabako so that the children could see the "magic" of bringing all the pieces out of a small box to make a cup of tea. Instead of the contents in the picture, I used 2 nesting teabowls and a furidashi (sweets jar) that I made. I used lacquered pieces with a "koma" pattern of colored concentric rings, reminiscent of a child's toy spinning top. I will post a picture of that later.

my chabako set