Sports Day!

A couple weeks ago the students at the elementary school had a sports day. This is pretty similar to American school's "Relay Day" or May day... with a few differences.

The day begins with a procession of all the classes around the track.


They also paraded the flags and the trophy for the winning team.


The school was broken up evenly into two teams, the read team and the white time. Elementary schools range from 1st grade to the 6th grade. These are the first graders from the Red team.


After that the kids lined up according to grade and was addressed by the principal. He gave a long boring speech but the little students seemed to be really well behaved. It was all very formal and I couldn't imagine american first graders standing at attention for so long.


Then some of the students gave a little speech. It was so cute, they were so squeaky.


Then everyone did the typical japanese morning "exercise". Thats the principal there.


The sixth grade girls were mother hens in training. They made sure the little ones did what they were supposed to do. They crack the whip! I think they enjoyed playing mommy though.


Before each event the kids would line up and sit and wait patiently for their turn.


These kids are so cute, those hats! The hats were red on one side and turn them inside out and they are whiteish, i guess more pink.


Brick biters!


So one of the big differences in japanese sports day is the dancing. Boys and girls both have dances. At the elementary school they had two major dances. One with black shirts and another, I think more traditional dance, they wore a sort of robe called a Happi. In this dance they semi-rythmically beat sticks together.


It was mostly older kids in this dance.


Pregame! This is one kid kept staring at me so I snapped a photo of him. Mostly younger kids did this second dance. It involved sticks as well.


This girl was really talkative and crazy till I pointed the camera at her, then she clammed up.


Just before the dance they all lined up, this one little girl was yelling at everyone to line up.


Let the dance commence! It was a pretty low key dance. Some spinning and stuff but it was pretty long and I was impressed the kids all learned it so well.


Next the races began. I call this one, the big pants race. They relay race by jumping into these big shorts.


Another one was the "horse race".


Then they had this race where each person got inside a hula hoop, they were all connected. They had to kick the two soccer balls that were in the same bag, bola style.


At one point, each team performed their team cheer. They basically did a little dancing and a lot of yelling. This was the red team.


It all ended with everyone lining up, one team winning the trophy and some long boring speeches. It was a really fun day. The school was packed with people from the community. It was quite an event.