Japanese School Part 3: Sports Day

To say Sports Day at the girls' Japanese school was an event would be a pretty gross understatement. I think they started practicing for it in April. And by practicing for it, I don't mean training for events. In the week lead up, the girls usually had at least one session each day (approx. 1hr) preparing with their class or grade, and sometimes more as they prepared with the school as a whole. 

Sports day was scheduled for Saturday, but in the information they sent home, there was a contingency plan for if Saturday was rainy. Then spots day would be postponed to Sunday and the students would still have school on Saturday (with the Monday timetable). If it was also raining on Sunday, sports day would be moved to Tuesday (for some unknown reason, Monday would always be a day off). They even planned for a back up plan for that, because if it was raining on the Tuesday, sports day would be Wednesday. After that, it was tough luck and no sports day. 

As it happened, Saturday was rainy, so the girls went off to school for five hours and came home at 2. Sunday was a mix of cloudy and sunny, but a very humid 30 degree heat. With lots of warning about making sure everyone had enough water to stay hydrated and encouragement to parents to bring fans and cooling devices (but no recommendations for sunscreen), sports day was a go. 

The girls were at school at 8 and parents arrived after 8:10 to be ready for the 8:35 start. The band (including Sophie on saxophone) played the fanfare to start. They sounded great. Probably because they have been practicing every single morning before school from 7:30. Sophie herself told me that the band sounded fantastic compared to her Australian band, and did make the connection that practicing every day had something to do with it. 

All the grades lined up in their two teams (white and red), and marched forward across the oval. There were speeches from the Principal, a vow of trying their best from the sports captains and a group of grade 1 students had a cute moment talking about their first sports day and how excited they were. Then they did cheers. It was like a war cry competition in Australia, but not only did they cheer for their own team, but they took turns encouraging the opposing team as well. 

The students then did a warm up, based on the national radio-taiso exercises and at last the competition began! Each grade had a presentation of some kind that somehow contributed to the points. Some were easier to understand the points system than others. The year 3&4 students, for example, had a tug of war. Easy to see the winning team who got 20 points. The year 5 students (Rachel's grade) did the soran bushi, which is a traditional fisherman dance and I have no idea how that was scored. 

The thing that was most fun to watch was the year 5&6 students do a team relay activity. There were a stack of four cardboard boxes for each team with "red/white team winners!" written on in kanji. Three students from each team had to run up to the opposing teams boxes and throw them all over the place. They would then run back to the start, and the next group of three students would go to their own boxes (now scattered all around by the other team) and they would re-stack them in order (so they read the right message) as quickly as possible. Then they would run back and then next group of three would start the process all over again. It was so fun to watch and we were really cheering for the white team (for the girls) to win. I will definitely be including it as an activity in a school event in the future. 

The year 6s had the last item of the day, which was a very long (12 minutes!) piece where they did a combination of dances and stretches/yoga moves. On the gravel/dirt/crusher dust oval. Barefoot. Suddenly Sophie complaining about doing a bridge and then a candlestick made sense. 

The only actual "sports day" type event that every student did was a running race. Year 5&6 did 80m, which was two thirds of the way around the oval, because it's so small. No other races, or field events. Honestly, there really wasn't any space anyway. And because the oval is dirt, the lines marking the track kept having to get redrawn after almost every grade. I was so impressed at how quickly the teachers could redraw the circles in the middle for the various events (like that tama-ire (literally ball-in, where the year 1's threw bean bags at a basket on a pole)). 

When it was all done, the students lined up again, marched across the oval and waited for the scores to be revealed. The score board was hung off the balcony of one of the buildings (you can see it in the photo above). They had been updating through the day, but they took down the numbers just before the end and some year 1 students got to race up and put the numbers up for the final score. It was pretty fun, even though the white team lost. 

Photos were super hard to get, because it was standing room only for parents, and the kids were under marquees across the oval (on their chairs that they carried out of their classrooms), but hope this gives a little snap into sports day. It finished just after 12:30, but the kids had to pack up and have lunch before coming home. They were pretty wrecked when they did come home, because they had just had seven days straight of school, including the intense sports day prep lessons. Luckily, Monday was a day off and Tuesday was too (because of reasons... Sunday sports day reasons I guess?), so they had a weekend and a short week of school to finish it off. 

Home Ec Sewing

The girls are both supposed to take some kind of sewing classes in Home Ec at their Japanese school this year. I don't know for sure if it will happen in term one when we are here, though Sophie's class seemed to indicate that, but if so, I wanted them to have what they needed. 

It was pretty basic stuff, but I didn't have anything to put it in, so rather than taking apart what I had in my housewife, I just picked up a small sewing kit and thread from the 100Yen store near us. After doing that though, I realised it would be good to have something to keep the thread and sewing supplies together, so I ended up making a thing anyway. 

I used some of the leftovers from the girls bags. Not wanting either girl to feel I was favouring them, and also not wanting to make two of the same thing, I just made one reversible thing. 

Everything fits nicely. I don't know how or why that white ribbon ended up coming to Japan with us, but it was rather perfect for this little project. 

And then you flip it out, and suddenly, it's a whole new pouch. Is this Housewife 3.0? Don't think I'd go that far, but it does the job and I can't complain about another little sewing project to keep my hands busy while I practice listening to Japanese. 

Japanese School Part 2 (Including Parent Observation Day!)

To say we are proud of our girls and how they are dealing with school in Japan would be the greatest understatement. We really threw them in the deep end and while they have had a struggle to stay afloat, they are also learning to tread the water and even beginning to start swimming. 

Here are the shoe boxes for the students (specifically the two grade 5 classes) at the entrance of the school. There are boxes like this for every class and student in the school. When they enter, they take off their outside shoes and change into their inside school shoes. Teachers change shoes too. Parents who are visiting also have to change shoes. There are visitor slippers for irregular visitors, but parents are pretty much expected to BYO every time, so I've got a pair of slippers to slide on when I visit the girls at school. Fun times.

This is the school from the back. The three story building make a U-shape around that big gravel "play area". It's a pretty compact school, but then, the Japanese are pretty skilled at fitting lots of people into a small space efficiently. Below is to the left, which shows the gym. There is also an indoor pool on the campus somewhere. I took these shots from the "back gate" of the school on a Sunday morning. The front side is literally gate and stairs up into the main building. The girls say that kids throw balls at those archery targets. No kicking allowed. 

As you might have seen in my first post about the girls starting school, the classrooms are pretty standard old school. Single desks in rows, all facing the black board. The school has extra rooms for science, art, home ec, PE and music, but everything else is done in their classroom. Each month, there is an "Education Day" where parents can come and observe the lessons. I went along and stood in the back of the classroom while Rachel's Humanities teacher discussed the weather (honestly, un-engaging, rote learning style of guess what the teacher is telling you and then fill in the blanks) and then went down to see Sophie's class at art (more interesting, but the kids were all just working on covering a wire frame of a person with air dry clay stuff, so not hugely gripping). 

I considered staying for science (where the topic was "how things burn") but couldn't be bothered wait the twenty minute break between the lessons. Especially since kids were changing from PE gear to regular clothes and vica versa all over the place (in the classrooms, with windows and doors open); who needs change rooms right? The girls had four classes that day, lunch and then were sent home at 1:20. Still can't get my head around the timetable. 

School lunches are provided for all primary school students across Japan. Each class has a roster of students (about four or five at a time) who will go down to the kitchens and collect the lunches for the class. They then bring them back and serve each student. When everyone has their food, the students sit and eat together. Students who serve wear white aprons, hats and masks for the week and then bring them home to be washed and returned. Sophie has already had her turn, but Rachel's group is still coming up.

We were given the lunch menu for the first month when the girls started, so they mostly know what to expect each day. Some days Sophie comes home telling us they are trying to poison her, but for the most part, it's different but edible. There is always milk to drink, and if there are any students away and there is an extra something, the students can do janken (Scizzors Paper Rock) to share the extra. Sophie (and Rachel) generally always leaps at the opportunity for the extra milk. 

Along with the responsibility of serving the food, the students have groups to clean the classrooms as well. At the end of the day/week, there is a big clean where the desks are all moved back and the floor is swept. In the first week, Rachel's group had to go clean the art room, so I guess there is a complicated roster system for cleaning the whole school too. 

They also had their first taste of Saturday school last week. Saturday school used to be a very regular thing, but now days it's only once a month, and usually just a half day of classes. The girls first Saturday school experience though was the Opening Ceremony for their school. Thanks to Japan's declining population problem, two of the local schools in the area combined this year to become one. Instead of just bringing one school over, they actually officially abolished both schools and created a new school, complete with new school song, logo, the whole works. 

Photo from Asahi News.

The Opening Ceremony was a lot of official stuff that the kids had to sit through (I think they practiced every single day in the lead up) and the grade 6s were at the front of it for a part too. I think the actual ceremony only went for just over an hour, but Rachel's school schedule for Saturday was: 

1. Practice and set up for the Opening Ceremony

2. Do the Opening Ceremony

3. Reflect on the Opening Ceremony

Got to say, I wouldn't be excited to go to school that day either. The school opening made the news, and you can see Sophie in the photos here. The emblem for the school was designed by a local (and incredibly famous) manga/anime artist who I guess I'll talk about in another post. 

Front gate of the school. Logo on the building at the top.

There are the usual things you'd expect for school too, including homework to do, but for the most part, we are being pretty relaxed. We've told the girls we know it's going to be tough for them, and that we aren't expecting them to understand everything. It's all about trying, and if they can focus on learning the Japanese, that's progress enough. Rachel is having a lot of success with maths, thanks to being clever enough to figure out what to do with the numbers in between all the Japanese writing. 

And that's enough about school for now! Onto something more fun next time. 

Japanese Primary School Part 1

Call us crazy, but we've enrolled the girls into a local Japanese primary school. We are living in Japan after all and wanted to make the most of the experience. The girls had mixed feelings about this, but we were pretty confidant that the benefits would outweigh the potential troubles. 

School started on the 7th of April, just over a week ago now. For primary school, everyone has to go to the primary school in their local area and all the kids walk to school. Even year one. All by themselves. The school has set routes that the students follow, so there is a lot of students streaming past in the morning and afternoon. They do have some parent helpers/teachers out with flags along the routes to help kids get familiar with it, but for the most part the thinking is that you are at school now, so it's time to be responsible. 

Higashi Yotsugi Primary School Hat

We only live a two min walk from our local school. I think the strangest thing about school so far has to be the rather overcomplicated timetable. There are six hour days, there are five hour days. There are days that are only four hours and finish before lunch. Then there is the B timetable, which also has five and six hour days, but finish at different times. Also, I don't think they count the 20 minutes of self study that students need to do when they arrive at school in this, although Rachel says her teacher gets in at 8:30 and class starts then. Who knows!

Inside school shoes ready for day one

The first day of school was a one hour day for Rachel, and a three hour day for Sophie, since she's in year six and has "leadership responsibilities". To be honest, even though I've written down what day is what on the calendar, I'm still never quite sure when they are coming home. I guess that's why the kids are trained to get to and from school all on their own, so it doesn't really matter. 

Part of Sophie's year six leadership responsibilities has been to look after a year one student every morning for the first two weeks of school. She has to get to school by 8:05 to meet the year one-er, make sure they put their bag away, go to the toilet, get a drink etc, then sit with them in class and read or draw together until it's time for the teacher to come in. 

It's free dress for primary school, though on the first day, Sophie did have to wear "ceremony clothes" (button up white shirt and black skort). The only thing that identifies the kids as school students is the really obvious school backpacks and their school hat. We did have to buy the sports uniform (white shirt, dark shorts, red/white reversible hat) for them to change into for sports. 

Speaking of sports uniforms, the girls take them to school on Mondays and bring them home on Fridays. I think this is strategic to help people not forget their uniforms, because with all the timetable changes, you never really know when you'll need it. Rachel had PE on Friday in the first week, and then on Monday in the second. The other thing they've needed to get changed into their uniforms for is the start of year doctors check ups. 

Yes, you read that right. Every student has multiple, dare I say, numerous doctors checkups at the start of the year. At the school, provided by the government. I'm talking movement/muscular skeletal checks, ear, nose and throat, asthma and heart as well as eye tests. It was pretty strange for the girls, even though I pre-warned them about it. 

Aside from that, the girls have settled into their classes really quickly. Rachel's teacher is pretty fabulous and makes sure he takes the time to check Rachel is understanding things. She is student number 30 in class 2 of year 5 (refered to as 5-2). Students sit in their number order (at least for the start of the year), and I think she likes it up in the back corner where she can look out the window. 

Sophie's teacher has been a little harder to get on board. I know she's focused on helping all the year six students "prepare for Junior High School", but it's still annoying. Sophie is number 20 in her class (6-1) and sits in the second row. I know this because when they had the start of year parent meeting on Friday last week, we got to go and sit in the classrooms, at the desks that our kids would sit at, and listen to the teacher tell us stuff. 

Most days the girls have come home with something new and fun that happened to tell us about. Scattered in these stories are moments of "Japanese all day makes my brain hurt", which was expected. On the first day, Rachel was delighted to report that her school had axolotl in the hallway on the first floor. We have been subsequently less excited seeing the conditions of the tank that these poor creatures are exisiting in. Nothing interesting in there at all; not even a rock for them to hide behind. It's the flip side of living somewhere like Japan, on one hand: cool axolotl! On the other hand: no care for animal rights.

Speaking of the flip sides of Japan, as I sat in Rachel's classroom listening to her teacher talk about things (and point out the work they had done that day on the black board (yes, you read that right - it was written with chalk and everything!)), I noticed that right under the fancy touch screen TV sat a still working cassette tape player. Oh Japan. One foot in the future and the other firmly in the past. 

There is lots more to say about Japanese schools, but I'll leave this here for now and you can come back another time to learn about school lunches, cleaning classrooms, clubs and all the different subjects! 

School Prep

This could be otherwise entitled: Any Chance to Sew. 

School for the girls starts on the 7th of April. It's actually the beginning of the Japanese school year so they will be joining fresh new classes. More so for this school too, because two primary schools in the area have just merged into the one, so the rooms will be full of new "first time here" students. Admittedly, not many will look as tall and pale as our girls. 

What they needed for school was fairly simple:

Sports clothes - white shirt, dark shorts, red/white reversible hat. 

Lunch mat & small bag to put it in

Face cloth & sweat towel

Indoor school shoes 

Draw string bag for carrying the sports stuff/washers/lunch stuff to and from school

Coloured pencils (pens are not allowed)

Everything else they had (every day uniforms are free dress); outdoor/running shoes, lead pencils, sharpeners etc. We got most of the things from the local department store and I was feeling pretty chuffed that it was all organised. 

For those wondering - Japanese people are very particular about wearing shoes and not wearing shoes that have been outside (considered dirty) inside the house. This also extends to school, which is considered an "inside" place. Every student (and staff member) arrives at school in one pair of shoes and then in the entry way, changes to their inside shoes to wear while in the buildings of the school. If they need to go outside (like for sports), they will change back. It's a whole thing. Anyway, back to school gear. 

I had thought we could get away with out the draw string bag for the sports stuff, since the girls could really easily just chuck it into their school bag, but I was talking to the mum friend I'd made, and realised it would be better if the girls just had a bag. As always, I was reticent to buy something that was gross polyester, generic and not well made. It was the perfect opportunity to make a bag.

The girls and I took a trip to Nippori, which is known as "Fabric Town" in Tokyo, for the entire street of fabric stores right across from the station. They knew what they were looking for: Sophie wanted cats and Rachel wanted cows. Sophie was in luck pretty early on with a variety of different cat fabric. She picked out a purple cat print about halfway through, though she did partially regret it when we saw a "cats as sushi" print a little later on. 

Rachel's cow fabric was much harder to find. One shop even had a swatch of cow fabric on the walls (a check with cute cows on it), but when we asked, the shop guy looked and told us that it was all gone. We wandered up and down all over the place when we were eventually in the five level Tomato store about half way back down the street. The number of times I went up and down the stairs, mostly to level four, is a bit ridiculous, but we emerged (from the abyss of shopping, as Sophie would say) victorious, with a lovely cow print in hand. 

We came home and I used my housewife to start prepping fabric into all the parts I needed to make two drawstring bags, very similar to Steve's koi bag from just after Christmas. I was thankful that I'd decided to take my real sewing scissors, but everything else from the housewife did the job. 

Fabric was cut with only two very useable rectangles left from each print. Each bag had a front and back rectangle, a small pocket rectangle and two loops for the straps. The cat fabric yeilded enough for two extra loops, so I used one on each bag on the inside to put a little loop so they can hang the bags off a hook if they need to. Glad I did, because both bags have found a home hanging from the hooks in the dining room. 

The other fun feature of these bags were the cute Pokemon patches. The girls were fading towards the end of our shopping trip, and I distracted them while I was trying to figure out how much cord I needed to buy for the straps/drawstring by letting them look at the patches on display and then telling them they could have one each. Rachel has a Pawmi and Sophie has an Eevee. 

I spent a couple of hours that first night prepping things, then a few hours each the two days getting the sewing done while the girls and I chatted, listening to podcasts, music and musicals. Hand sewing success. The girls have been mostly amiable about their new life in Japan, though as we get closer to the start of school, there have been some big emotions to help them navigate. Hopefully this handmade reminder of how much I love them as they go to school will give them some security in a new and unfamiliar place.