Digging Potatoes

Children from Big Sister and Little Brother's old kindergarten were digging potatoes today. I couldn't take a picture of them because of privacy issues, so I dug out their old school shovel. The big one was Jiji's, Grandpa's. The children wore their gym clothes and rain boots when they dug potatoes. They took home a bag of potatoes. We made a curry and stew with ours.

Here are the tops of the potato plants. See the crow? He is heading toward the holes where the children dug. Maybe he'll dig around for some small potatoes.

Here is the farmer digging and preparing another field. This is not the field behind our house and he is not our vegetable man.

Kindergarten Uniform

Big Sister and Little Brother had to wear a uniform to their kindergarten. This is Little Brother's winter school uniform jacket. Big Sister wore a skirt and white blouse (round collar) with her jacket. Little Brother wore short pants and a white shirt. They had a summer uniform, too. There wasn't a summer jacket. They had winter and summer smocks that they wore over their uniforms. They also had a gym uniform in kindergarten. Not all kindergartens have uniforms.

Private elementary schools have uniforms. Our public elementary school does not have a uniform. Most public and private junior high schools have uniforms. Private high schools usually have uniforms. Some public high schools have them, some don't.

*Each school would have their own color and style.

Kindergarten Graduation Gift

Graduations are in March. When Big Sister and Little Brother graduated from kindergarten many years ago, they were given a yellow umbrella as a gift. Little Brother still uses his from time to time. He takes this one when rain is expected. It's his "just in case umbrella". If it's raining when he leaves the house, he takes his bigger umbrella.

Kindergarten Music Lessons: Harmonica

Big Sister and Little Brother learned to play songs on the harmonica in the second year of kindergarten. The beige thing is the harmonica's plastic case. I had to make cloth cases for their harmonicas. Little Brother had a Thomas the Engine quilted case. Big Sister had a pink wool felt case for hers. Not shown are the soft cotton cloths they had to have to polish the harmonicas. The children performed a song at a concert for parents.

Click on the labels below to see the instruments students played in elementary school music class. Every year they had a big concert. Each child learned to play different instruments, too, like the xylophone, accordion, piano, etc. Students chose what they wanted to play at the concert. In Big Sister's junior high, the students sang in their music class. They didn't play instruments.

Painting in Kindergarten

Kindergarten Supplies Box

Greetings to the kindergarten students in NH, USA who are looking at Here and There Japan this week!

This was Little Brother's kindergarten supplies box, dougubako (the "u" makes the "o" long). Big Sister's looked the same. They were wrapped in furoshiki and presented to the teacher on the first day. The boxes were kept on a shelf in the back of the room. In elementary school, they have supplies boxes, too. They are the same size, but they are brown. They are kept in the desk. Click on the label below to see other school items for elementary school.

At the top is a box of markers. A box of paints is in the middle. The yellow box is a box of crayons.

These boxes of paint, markers, and crayons were kept in the supplies box. Mothers put color labels on each paint tube and marker. Each paint tube, marker, and crayon had to have the child's name written on it, too.

There are two types of crayons used in kindergarten. The dark green crayon is called Sakura Cray-Pas. It is soft and waxy. The light green and white crayons are called Sakura Coupy- Pencils. They are hard. They can be sharpened to make fine lines. They are not pencils, though. They are harder than American crayolas.

I couldn't find our box of Sakura Coupy-Pencils. They come in a flat tin box. Each crayon has its own place. There is even a diagram on the top to remind you where each color goes in the box. Mothers write their children's name on each one in a permanent marker. Kindergarten is a lot of work!

There would also be a package of origami paper in the supplies box. The clay box, pad, and utensils would also be kept in it.

Kindergarten: Working with Clay

Big Sister and Little Brother used this blue pad for clay work in kindergarten. It has shallow molds on it. The other side is smooth. That side was used for working with the clay to make other things. The clay is in the box with the blue top. There is a elastic band around it. Mothers had to make elastic bands for each crayon, marker, and paint box. The clay instruments had their own bag (on the left.)

Can you see the elephant in the bottom lefthand corner? What is that next to it? That style is hard to find here now.

These are instruments used for working with clay. And regular scissors for paperwork.

School Paste and Glue

This is the paste that kindergarteners use.

The bottle of glue on the left is used in kindergarten and elementary school. It looks like honey. The paste on the right is used in first and second grade at our school.

This is the top of the bottle of glue. It looks like a honeycomb. It is rubbed on paper like a glue stick. Glue seeps through small holes onto the paper.