Parent Observation Day

Today (6/25/10) was a parent observation day at Marin's school, during the last class period. Of course Marin loves it when I come to her school. Can you find Marin in the picture waving wildly?
About once a quarter, parents are invited to come observe the class going about their typical classroom activities. It is so fun, and such a rich experience to be in this foreign class environment. Childrens paintings line the back wall, each signed by the artist, in hiragana, the simplest set of Japanese characters. On large peaces of paper, hung near the front of the room, next to the piano, words to school songs are written for singing practice. The teacher is a very good pianist, as many Japanese teachers are. Every classroom has a piano for the almost daily singing time. On the board is written the study schedule of the day, in Hiragana. The date and month are posted in English so the children can learn a few English words.
This is a Hiragana chart.
Today's visit happened to be during math time. It was interesting to watch the teacher teach math to all these cute little 6-year-olds using big yellow magnetic blocks on the chalk board, suckers in her hands that she would "add" and "subtract", and writing basic arithmetic equations on the board. I couldn't understand much of what she was saying except for the numbers, which are some of the few Japanese words I know. I was surprised how well the kids focused on listening and doing their math assignment while parents quietly lined the back of the room.
It was really fun to watch Marin follow along well enough, even though she doesn't understand a whole lot of Japanese yet. It's a really good thing that they are teaching with the regular numbers that we know, and not their character numbers, or worse, numbers in kanji!! Yes, they have kanji for numbers. (Click image to see better.) After class Marin showed me her "wish" on the bamboo tree. There is a bamboo tree in the hall way where the children each hung a colorful piece of paper on which they wrote a wish of what they want to be. Marin wants to be a Pegasus.She wrote it in katakana on the yellow strip of paper. (left yellow paper) This activity is a traditional thing that the Japanese do at this time every year.

Marin loves her Japanese school. She does very well. I am so glad that she takes such interest in learning! She picks things up so quickly, and she has the perfect personality to send to a foreign school and to thrive.

School Lunch: Japanese Style

I recently had the pleasure of eating lunch at Marin's school, to get an idea of what Marin experiences every day. Many mothers came to enjoy the same, each wearing an apron, a face mask, a scarf on their head, and indoor shoes. I took this picture off the internet to show you how Marin and her class do lunch every day. The white attire is their lunch uniform. The children serve each other lunch from two short, slender tables that are brought into the classroom just for lunch. One table pulls out from under the other. The Japanese really have their own unique way of doing pretty much everything.


Lunch was served in a classroom in the same way it is every day for the kids, and it was very much like what is pictured above. I really enjoyed it! I was surrounded by Japanese mothers, and I couldn't understand anything that they said. It is such a different experience being in the minority.
I sat next to another mother I met recently who is Brazilian. She has lived here in Japan for 10 years and has picked up some of the language. Other than that, she speaks only Portuguese. We sat together and had as much of a conversation as we could. It was quite amusing since there wasn't much overlap in the words, in any language, that both of us know. Between my few words of Japanese, and a few more words in Spanish, which is close enough to Portuguese, and her limited Japanese, we could communicate a few basic things. She's cool lady and I enjoyed her company.

At the end of lunch a survey was collected. I couldn't write much about the food, except, in romanji, "oishii kata" --- "It was delicious". I had to laugh to myself when I had to look at my name tag to remember how to write my name. It looks like this:
エミリー アンダーソン
How often as an adult do you have to think really hard about how to write your own name? It's funny, but very humbling.