I owe you all a post about my school festival!

Yeah... it was back in October.  BUT, it is never too late to share some stories.  At least, what I can remember.  Let me just remind you that schools here have school festivals.  I do not really know what to relate it to in America.  The festivals are are part field day (that day where you play sports outside) and are part music and part like "open house" where parents and friends look at things you have done and made at school.

Alright.  Well, last year, I only got to go to one day of my festival because of a JET meeting, but this year, I asked to be excused from the meeting and got permission to miss it and thus, I went to BOTH days of my festival!  And I am so glad I did.  These kids put a lot of effort into the festival and I like to be able to see it from start to finish.  Plus, the stage presentations that are on the first day (the day I missed last year) are hilarious!

I will now tell the story with pictures:

DAY 1:  Stage presentations and sports festival

One Step to Start was the slogan for the festival.  The two on stage are the chairs of the school festival committee.  The slogan is significant because this was the first school festival for the school.  If you recall, my school last year closed and we moved buildings and got half of the students from another middle school which closed completely.  So this year was one step to start a new school and new traditions.  I liked their slogan a lot.

 The video is from the stage presentations.  Some 2nd year boys did double dutch.  They were pretty good, too.

class jump roping competition.  See video below.  They jump as many times as they can in 3 minutes.  I think one class got into the 30s. It is A LOT harder than it looks.

 Here is the jump roping in action.

Part of the relay.  First, kids ran a quarter of the track giving piggy-back rides.  Then they switch to wheelbarrows, then a two-legged race, then three-legged, and then finally, the above, which I forget what it is called.  Their feet are tied together on both sides.

This was funny.  They had to take a piece of string from a box and then tie it to a water bottle.  The first time to make a string long enough to cross the finish line won.  I should mention that when the draw the string from the box, the length that came out was random. Some were several feet long, others were only a few inches.

Students and my school in the background.

The wheelbarrow part of the relay I mentioned above.

Ekiden relay race.  Each kid had to run like 600m I think.  Some uphill.

DAY 2:  "Open house" and music festival and closing ceremony

1st year English!  They wrote self-introductions.  15 sentences.  They are incredible.  I love my 1st years!

2nd year English  I do not know if you have been reading all my blog posts, but this is the project I had them do.  They made up a school name, a school emblem, and 5 school rules.  The goal was creativity, and only about half managed that.  But, they did all manage to finish, and they are good.  I was happy all-in-all

More 2nd year English

More 2nd year English

More 2nd year English projects

Decorated classroom. 

All the teachers!  Can you find me?

Amazing artwork.  It is painted onto graph paper.

Decorated ceiling!

Fabulous brass band

The whole school singing.  The video would not upload, but they are amazing.  Four-part harmony.  Could you do that in middle school?  I could not...and I still cannot, for that matter!

The courtyard (I guess) with the festival slogan.

Beautiful closing ceremony. They had candles and lit them all to spell out "One Step to Start."