Pre-School Event

As I’ve mentioned before, Ridge’s group at the pre-school (called “kirin-gumi," which means “giraffe group”) has been preparing for graduation for some time now. As a part of their preparations, they have been practicing certain activities off and on for several months. Ridge has learned how to jump rope, play hand bells, and jump a vaulting horse. The kids had a chance to show off these skills last Thursday.

The event began with the kids all assuming their normal positions on the floor, reciting their morning greeting, and bowing. The younger classes were then moved back and out of the way, followed by a greeting recited by the Kirin-gumi kids.

Sitting in place
Welcoming recitation

First came the “tobibako” jumping. I’m not exactly sure what we would call this piece of equipment in the U.S., but there, it is a tobibako. The word “tobi” is related to the idea of flying. “Bako” means box. So, literally, it translates to something like “flying box”. The kids run and leap over it, adding height as they improve. Some of the kids at the elementary school can jump a tobibako that is more than eight levels high. It seems to be a very popular P.E. activity here. The kirin-gumi kids started out low, with only three levels. That done, they raised the first box to four levels, and finished with everyone jumping the box with six levels. Ridge was awesome, as you can see from the photo that I posted yesterday.

Preparations
Chizue-sensei making sure things are ready.
Ridge running
Ridge preparing to vault

The second event was the jump roping. Throughout the year, the kids have been jumping and keeping track of how many times they can jump without stopping. A chart is hung on the wall of their room illustrating everyone’s progress. The usual procedure is for one child to jump while everyone else counts. As a result, Ridge can count better in Japanese than English. In fact, the other day he was pointing out numbers on signs while we were driving, and he would then tell me what that number was in Japanese (the number 40, for example). The only problem was that he couldn’t tell me the number in English! Some of the girls can jump upwards of one hundred times, so the kids have had lots of practice in counting. Ridge jumped fifty times, and worked very hard to do it. He refused to give up, and eventually made it to his goal.

Jumping

After everyone had jumped rope individually, the group broke into a boy group and girl group. Each team had the opportunity to jump collectively, with the teachers turning a long jump rope. Apparently, in the past, the girls had been able to jump twenty or thirty times without tripping up, but on Thursday they had no such luck. After several attempts, they had to be satisfied with only one turn. The boys, after one try, settled with three consecutive turns. It sounded like their record had been ten.

The final event for the kids was a hand bell performance. The group was broken into two smaller groups, each playing a different song. It was very cute. Each child had a bell of a different color, and Chizue-sensei (the head teacher) had initially taught them just by pointing. They used some giant sheet music for the performance and it was fun to finally see Ridge perform what he had been talking about for weeks. He was so excited!

After the kirin-gumi had their moment in the spot light, all the younger kids stood up to perform a song and dance as well. Holt loves to dance, and was cheerfully singing away until he began to complain of his tummy hurting. So, unfortunately, we have no photos of his performance. At the completion of this song, Chizue-sensei complimented everyone on how hard they had worked, especially kirin-gumi. Then, the older students lined up so the mothers could give each one of them a special (plastic) medal. They were all so proud. It was after the “award ceremony” that all the kirin-gumi mothers disappeared to dress for our dance.

Proud kids

I must say, I think the dance went off without a hitch. It was hysterical, and the kids screamed and laughed like crazy. They loved it so much that we ended up needing to do an encore! All in all, the entire event was a lot of fun, and we were very proud of Ridge and Holt!