Japanese Kindergarten

I had the opportunity to visit a Japanese Kindergarten today. We traveled by chartered bus across Tokyo to get there - very heavy traffic. But it was well worth it to visit this Christian (Methodist) Kindergarten. In Japan, Kindergarten is really what we consider pre-school. It is not compulsory but most children attend anywhere from age 2 to 5. This kindergarten had 3, 4, and 5 year olds. Like most children this age, they are cuter than cute but unfortunately I have very few pictures because I had forgotten to recharge my camera battery. I did get a few pictures and very cute video before the camera gave out.

These kids do wonderful origami, other arts and crafts, stories, songs, Bible stories, physical education, and I'm sure a lot more. The children were very well behaved and focused on what their teachers were showing them. We observed a teacher reading "The Great Big Enormous Turnip" to the 4 year olds and then they acted out the story with real turnips. The 3 year olds were involved in physical education with two young men who really new how to get these kids motivated. They were doing flips on the monkey bars!

We left right before their lunch but they were very proud to show us their little lunches brought from home. The were all different, in cute little lunch containers, and were filled with a variety of vegetables, rice, egg, meat, etc. The day we visited was "chopstick" day which means they could only eat with chopsticks. Also no dessert was to be had that day so that the kids would remember that others in the world do not have enough to eat. I was so impressed! This was definitely my favorite school visit.

10/31/2007 : view on map : permalink : add a comment