Okay, I know quite a few of you have asked about Sage and school, so here's the scoop! The pictures are pretty randomly placed, didn't feel like taking the time to organize them, and I have some great snaps of he and his friends that I need to get scanned and put on too, but here's plenty to get you started! He is doing really great. Tonight he told me that instead of knowing just a few Japanese words, there are just a few he doesn't know......hee, hee! anyhow, he says he understands most of what people are talking about and in the last few days we are noticing him speaking more Japanese. Mostly kid phrases, like I see you, who's is this?, what's this?, etc...He has made friends, and talks specifically of two boys and two girls the most. He is really anxious to have them over, but we need to meet their parents first I think. I have been very impressed with the school so far. I especially like the communication notebook that he takes to school each morning and brings home each eve, we or the teacher can write any concerns or questions there. Sage thought we should tell about him eating snake there in case his friends didn't understand... or believe him!! We didn't however:). Once we got a note in there that Sage was getting more comfortable in school, maybe too comfortable and was squirming alot, and not paying attention and teasing other kids to distraction(trying to get their attention I'm sure), well basically being Sage....we had a nice talk and we haven't heard anything since, I think he is understanding more now, so the classes aren't as boring, I truly felt for him having sat thru many Japanese sermons.......
My other favorite is that the school doesn't have a janitor, (actually this is the way it is here), the kids clean the school and what they don't do, the principal and teachers do. I asked Sage the other day what they have to do and he said scrub the toilets, and the floors in the bathroom, sweep the floors, dust, etc. He gave me a detailed description of how they have to scrub the toilets. I asked him what he thought about the cleaning, and he said, "it's fun!!" I think he enjoys doing it with all the other kids, he did say he is the only one who actually makes a pile when they sweep though, HA! He has taken over toilet scrubbing at home now after assessing our brush and making sure it was up to par, you can just see him now can't you???
Sage was very impressed at his principal, he says every day he goes around and picks up all the trash in the classrooms, checks the track for weeds and pulls them and makes sure all the students are doing okay. He said, he must really like his job and wants to make sure nothing gets messed up, he's really good.
The events they have had so far are a class picnic when they hiked to a nearby park, played and ate lunch together, the snaps I talked about were taken by teachers that day and are really great. He had a blast. Then the cross country run that you see pics of and the Undoukai or Sports Festival that was last Saturday. The other sports pics are of that day. This is a Japanese school tradition, very big family day, everyone goes and there are games for the whole family to participate in after the students do their competitions and everyone brings a picnic lunch. The students practice for several weeks and Sage was in heaven, he absolutely loved it. They did games like tug of war, different fun relay races, etc. Sage's team came in last, but I don't think he noticed! It rained that day unfortunately so it was a little cold for him after he got wet.
Sage loves the playground and spends every moment he can there, Mon and Fri. the school day is 8:30-1:30, an hour shorter than the rest of the week, but the school bus comes at the same time. On nice days he likes to stay and play with his friends on the playground until the bus comes, on rainy days we try to pick him up. Most of the farm kids around here go to an afterschool program until 5 or so....so their parents can get more work done....wow....
They have hot lunch served to them in their classroom. It is very strictly and scientifically nutrionally balanced and calorie counted and everything. It is usually a traditional type Japanese meal with several different food, always soup and rice and usually a salad and several entrees, sometimes dessert. It's been a great way for Sage to get used to and get to try many types of food here. He usually eats most of everything and gets seconds of soup and rice often. They have to take their own utensils and bring them home to get washed every night. He has a little fork and spoon, that looks like a baby set, this is what they use though, and a little set of chopsticks, luckily he was already used to using them before he went and now is quite a pro. Kai is getting quite good at them too.
Recently Sage's class has been tending the plants they planted, something Sage loves to do. He usually comes back from his walk from the schoolbus with many varieties of plants or something interesting. Today it was a weed flower plant that smells"sweeter than honey, mom" which he pulled up by it's roots("I didn't break even one mom") and planted smack dab in the front of our greenhouse plants and carefully watered. It's like a dandelion he said, but different. His passion here has been Sansai, edible wild plants. Kenji's family has always gone to pick them in their seasons so Kenji and his dad got Sage interested. You can imagine he would love it, things he can find outside that we can actually eat! Jiji brought a book about them and he pores over it, finding what he can, begging for us to go in the woods and look for the ones he can't, and we have to cook and try them. He eats them because it's cool, right, not necessarily because they taste good! Their names were some of the first Japanese words he remembered. If you come to visit he will show them all to you and make you eat them too:)
Okay, back to school, luckily there isn't much homework at this age, just a page of writing numbers or characters now and then, Sage is good about it, and his numbers have greatly improved. I was a little worried at first at his sloppiness, but they are looking much better and he's starting to get the characters too. They are learning the first set of Japanese characters called hiragana right now, there are 50 of them. I know this one to read them anyway, but don't remember how to write them all. I need to practice with him. He finds the math boring, because I tried to get him ahead on it before we left so he wouldn't have to struggle with one thing at least and wouldn't get behind. One day he tried to tell the teacher he didn't need to do the dot to dot number sheet he gave him because he'd been doing them for years...the teacher didn't think much of that and told Sage he had to do it anyway. He's got the rules down now I think. The class periods aren't too long, each hour the kids have 10 or more min. to go to the bathroom and get up and move around and stuff, and the subjects rotate enuf to keep him from getting too bored.
In music class they are learning to play something called a kenban harmonica, it's kind of the same idea as an accordian, but you blow thru a long tube instead and play the keys in front of you. He can't bring it home so I don't know how he's doing, but he says fine. He told me at first that the music teacher was mean, you couldn't even move an inch or I mean a centimeter, he says or you would have to sit out the next song...I said how did you know that's what happened, he said because I had to, that's how I knew! But after that he hasn't, so I laughed and said, wow, wish I had a picture of you sitting that still!! Luckily we had just read a funny book about a teacher who had an unruly class and unbeknownst to her students dressed up like a mean teacher and was the sub with the iron hand for awhile until her students wanted her back even if they had to behave....anyhow we applied the story to this and Sage quickly made the connection and we had a good laugh about the teacher with the black dress. And he understood why sometimes teachers have to be strict it seems.
some days Sage would rather stay home of course, he thinks he could play all day and he barely drops his backpack at the door and changes in a flash to get outside again when he gets home, but I think school is a good experience and we've had alot of chances to talk about character issues and relational, life issues too. He's had some trouble now and then with some older kids picking on him, he is cute and little and different and they don't listen when he says stop.. but he has dealt very well with it, and we are praying and helping him to learn some avenues to deal with it when it happens. Sage is very happy these days, he is doing so many things he loves, spending lots of time with people, playing outside nonstop when he is home and lots at school too, and getting to see and learn about lots of new things. He goes to sleep in a flash, and is hard to get up, but it is so nice to see his happy countenance and his heart seems to be soft as well.
