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ADVANCE WORK: Send out the letter home to parents, get class list. Ask the teacher to have each child make a Go folder, name tags in advance.

MATERIALS YOU'LL NEED: 9x9 demo board, class Go sets: bring in 9x9 sets (not to leave the classroom), and lender sets (that the students can take home). 50' tape measure.

I'm going to tell you a story. It's an old, old story, and so we have to travel way back in time to hear it. (Note: here is a modified version of the regular introduction with the time travel backwards, modified for the story format. The point of it here is to take the kids from where they were when you walked into the classroom and put them in a different place.)

Take out the tape measure and ask for a volunteer to come up. I ask the class how old they are - say they are mostly ten years old. OK, we'll count your life span as one inch on this tape measure. One inch equals 10 years. Think of yourselves as one inch old.

Now the volunteer will hold the end of the tape measure and we'll walk backwards in time a little. I'm around 50 years old. that's five inches on the time scale (pull out the tape to 5"). Now our country, the U.S., is a little over 200 years old. Let's pull out the tape measure to 20", or almost two feet.

Now let's go back even further. How about to when Chistopher Columbus discovered the new world? That was in 1492, or about 500 years ago. Let's pull out the tape measure to 50 inches, or about 4 feet. Let's go back further, can you imagine about a thousand years ago? This was before a lot of what we think of as European culture had even developed. Let's pull out the measure 100" (about 8 feet.) I think we now need a second volunteer up here to help hold the tape measure (have a second child come up and hold the measure next to you, as the first child has moved 8 feet away).

Let's go back to the Roman Empire, the beginning of the Common Era, that's two thousand years ago - now we can pull the tape measure out 17 feet. I think we need a third volunteer to help now (as you are doing this, the tape measure is going down along one side of the classroom and has reached the back). Let's go back another 400 years, during the height of Greek culture, and Plato. This brings our measure out to 20 feet - wow. Now we need to really stretch our minds and go back 4000 years. The tape will end out being out around 33 feet. Thank the violunteers, and roll in the tape as you continue talking. Keep it smooth.

What do you think life was like for people back then? Do you think they had houses like ours? With electricity? With running water? (during this part of the story, get the class to participate with you. Ask the questions so that the kids offer answers. Discover together that people probably lived in huts, did not have books, TV, cars, bikes, school, and so forth.)

So we are going very, very far back in time, across the sea to the ancient land of China. Once there was a small village on the sea coast. Some of the people were fisherman, and some farmed for food.

There were two friends named Han and Chi. Han was a fisherman, and Chi was a farmer. What do you think they did at night after the sun went down? What did they look at? I think they looked at the night sky. And what did they see in the sky? (Stars, moon) Yes, they loved to talk and look at the sky. They noticed things about the night sky and the way their days went. Han would notice that when the moon was full, the fish would come much closer to shore, and it was easier to catch enough to feed his family. Chi noticed that if he planted seeds when the moon was full, they seemed to sprout more quickly and grow better. But they weren't always in the village at these important times. Often they had to make trips away for hunting, or to gather special wood for their boats and plows. They sometimes missed being back in the village to plant and fish at the right time, and their families went hungry.

So, being smart people like you, they came up with an idea: they needed a way to know when the moon would be full so they could be back in the village. They needed a calender! They decided to place a stone out each day, starting with the full moon, and see how many stones or days it would be until the moon was full again. They became very excited about their idea. Han ran to the shore and picked up bits of shells to use, and Chi ran to his field and began to collect little bits of slate that werre scattered about in the dirt.

They made a special board to place the stones on, and put a stone on the board each day. After about 28 days, the moon was full again. So the next time they had to make a trip, they put 28 stones in their pockets, and took out one each day. This way, they knew how many days they had until they should be back in the village. At home, they kept the calenders on the special boards.

They began to see that not only was it good to know the full moon each month, but that about every 3 moons the season would change. Spring became summer, and then fall, then winter. And eventually, they realized that 12 moons made a complete cycle of the year. They made a bigger board, one that would be for the whole year, and it looked something like this (hold up a 19 x 19 Go board). Now if the first corner is the beginning of the year, in winter, what do you think this first point (point to the upper corner star point) is? It's probably early spring, time to plant the first green crops. And perhaps at this center point (upper center star point), it's time to put in the corn, then the next point might be time to plant to onions. Now what time of year do you think it is when we reach the very center point? (help the class figure out it would be full summer, or the summer solstice) Now when we reach the points near the bottom of the board, perhaps it's fall. This first point might be time to harvest the corn. Then maybe the middle point is when the first frost might be, time to bring in the tomatoes. And so on. They made names for these special points on the boards, can you guess what the name was? Think about the night sky, besides the moon there's the ____ ( help the children to discover the word 'stars'). That's right, they called these special points star points. And you know what, 4000 years later, we still call them star points. (note to reader: it is surmised that go boards may have been an early form of a calender, which makes the story more compelling)

Having the calender changed the lives of Han and Chi and the whole village. Now they were able to plan for the best fishing and farming. Food became more plentiful, and so everyone was really grateful to the new calender board. They made a special one in a place of honor in the middle of the village, carved from a solid block of wood. Each household liked to have one in the center of the hut.

People's lives had improved, and they had more time to sit around and think of new things. Naturally, they started experimenting with their calender boards. People used both pieces of shell and slate on their boards, and they separated them into two piles - white and black. They began to play a game with the new boards, a surrounding game. The rules were very simple, but the game was so much fun that it survives to this very day, and is perhaps the most popular board game in the world today. Han and Chi's story continues right to us, right to this very classroom. Would you like to learn this game? If you do, you will become the newest part of this 4000 year old tradition. It's played in pairs. So pair up, one of you will be Han and will take the white, or shell color. The other one will be Chi, and will take the black, or slate color. (Even today, go boards are carved from a solid block of wood, and the stones are still made from shell and slate!)

Explain capture rules. Keep it very simple, you have 3-4 minutes before their attention starts to wander. I have them visualize the go board as being underwater, and each line coming out from a stone as a snorkel or breathing tube. Stones need to breathe to stay alive. Show how opposing stones block the breathing tubes, show atari, then capture, as the stone dies from lack of air. Then show how stones of the same color can breath through the buddy system, they can hook their snorkels up together. Write new words on the board.The new words you will probably cover are below.

Hand out the sets. Have them play to first capture.The kids will be most eager to play. About five minutes before the end, clap your hands and welcome them into the world of Go. Talk about taking care of the sets and how to put them away properly. Explain that the lender sets wil be left in the classroom and they can check them out from the teacher and take them home to play with.

VOCABULARY WORDS :

LIBERTIES (MEI): unoccupied lines around a stone or a group

ATARI: when a stone or group has only one liberty left

CAPTURE: when a stone or group, is completely surrounded, with no liberties left, and is removed from the board.