Elementary School

Every Thursday I rotate between three elementary schools. These photos are from two different schools. The kids are in 1st and 2nd grade. The uniform some of the kids are wearing is their gym uniform. I'm under the impression that they have to wear it on the days they have gym; other days they can wear what they want.

Typical lessons at elementary school include:

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

Reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

Hokey Pokey

Simon Says

Greetings (hello, my name is...., nice to meet you, how are you, etc) and shaking everyone's hand

There are four morning classes with a short recess between the second and third class. Then lunch at 12:30. I eat school lunch with the kids in whichever classroom I just taught. The students usually eat lunch at their desks, but each school has a small dining room that the classes take turns eating in. One set of lunch pictures below is in a classroom, the other in the dining room.

At lunch time, about 10 students in each class put on coats and hats and face masks and go to the school kitchen to get their classroom's lunch. They bring it back and serve it to their fellow students who have been moving the desks around for lunch and generally goofing off, as seen below:

School lunch is often a bread roll, soup, and some main dish and milk. It's hot when it's brought back from the dining room but by the time everyone is served and we wait until everyone is seated to say "Itadakimasu" (literally "I receive") before we can start eating, it's barely lukewarm.

Lunch on this day was lemon chicken (like sweet and sour chicken but just lemon flavored), a noodley soup, bread with margarine, and milk.

And on this day it was octopus rice (they very thoughtfully picked through the rice and gave me an octopus-free serving!), some bean sprouty vegetable dish, soup and milk, and an individually wrapped plum for dessert. The kids all peeled their plums before eating them!

After lunch is recess when the kids head to the playground. Every school has numerous unicycles which the kids love, and the usual playground swings, monkey bars, etc.