First Day of School All Over Again

AHH!! The beauty that is the first day of school. Well, technically speaking it wasn't the first day of school for these Japanese first-graders for a couple reasons: 1) junior high school is divided into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, instead of 7th, 8th, and 9th; and, 2) this was first day of school after summer vacation...the Japanese school year actually begins in April. Anyway, as you can see here in the pictures, these kids are AWESOME! I love them! They are very outgoing and good at English for being so young. Oh, and this is my entire class of 12 students. Yep, 12 students for me and the Japanesse English teacher to look after (that's a 6:1 student to teacher ratio if you are scoring at home).



















The traditional "peace" pose shown both above and below, is the most common pose in Japan. You will find children making this pose from the southern islands of Okinawa to the northern towns of Hokkaido. It is more Japanese than Sumo wrestling and Sushi combined...well, I think most sumo wrestlers have combined with a lot of sushi (rim shot, thank you, thank you)!





































More cute pictures of my first grade class.