Last weekend was our school festival or bunkasai in Japanese. The festival lasts two days, Friday is just for the students to enjoy and Saturday is when the parents and past students come to take part. We don't have anything similar to this in Ireland, which is a shame because its so much fun and the students organize everything. It's a lot of responsibility! Each homeroom class decides on a theme for their class and decorate accordingly. They decide if they will have a game or serve food in their room. Students spend days painting, drawing, gluing and crafting so that the school becomes a colourful wonderland. These are also performances such as dance, singing, and instrumental.
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| Me as Wally in the middle with HR21 |
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| The students preparing their Line activity |
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| Even the stairs were transformed |
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| I got to hang out with the students teachers on Friday |
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| I really enjoyed the shooting room |
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The Math club had so many puzzles, which were a lot of fun. My neighbor Jill came to enjoy the festival and this is her trying to solve a puzzle, she was good at them but this one was too difficult. Our English club had some boards about world food and also about our cooking club day. I think people liked it as they were informative and had great drawings.
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| Two members of English club |
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| The third year English club members who will be leaving club now |
I love the science clubs room too, there is always so many interesting creatures. My favourite is the Salamanders (above). Science club also play a common summer festival game called Kinyoshui, the object is to catch goldfish in a cup using a paper covered hoop as a net. You have to be careful not to rip the paper as when it breaks your turn is over. I caught only four goldfish but I watched the science teacher catch 23!
I was so excited that my friend Jill came to visit my school. She is the ALT at Gotemba High School and we had so much fun visiting all the games rooms and eating lots of food. We really enjoyed the Coco Curry from HR33 and various things made by the cooking club.
The Brass Band club performed on Saturday morning and they were brilliant. As well as music some students performed a dance routine. Unfortunately my video isn't uploading but I will hopefully be able to fix it and upload at a later date. Until then, there are some picture below. Four of our teachers joined the club for the performance Miss Unno, Miss Goto, Mr Heima and Mr Atani, they were excellent.
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| Some of the first year students who watched the performance with me |
The music clubs room was so much fun but it was very hot, so I didn't spend too much time in there.
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| Some of the students art |
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| School council |
All the students worked so hard and should be proud of their achievements. The students council worked tirelessly for weeks and most are third years so I hope they have many great memories of their last school festival. I certainly have lots!
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| Our Principle waiting to give out awards |
