Monday November 23rd was Labour Thanksgiving day, a public holiday in Japan. We held our annual Sports Festival at Ueda Sports Center on this day so that all the family, including proud fathers could attend and not only watch their children compete, but participate in many of the fun games and activities we had prepared.
All the students were divided into two teams, the Orange team and the Purple team. We practiced marching for weeks and made our dramatic entrances when the music started playing.
After the opening ceremony, we did some stretching and got ready for the games.
First was the over/under ball relay race with students and parents, followed by foot races, which were very entertaining. It was very fun to see some of the students run their very first race around the track, and some of the results were surprising.
Other races included the ice cream race where the students had to balance a ball on a small cup, and the caterpillar race where students got inside a cardboard box and had to roll it to the goal while inside the box. You can imagine how difficult it is to steer a box from the outside. Some students came up with some interesting ways to maneuver the box from inside.
After all the games were finished, we had a little dance party while the points were being calculated. Many of the mothers and fathers and grandparents joined and it was a lot of fun. After all the points were added up, it was a tie with both teams having 9 points.
Final Score
Orange team: 9 points
Purple team: 9 points
Finally we had a medal ceremony where everybody received a gold medal.
Everybody had a great time and we are sure that almost everybody was in bed a lot earlier than usual that night.
