Kindergarten Graduation

Caroline’s last day of yochien (kindergarten) was last Friday. This is her and Heather walking to school on her last day.

On Saturday, the school hosted her graduation ceremony. Unfortunately, because of corona, only one parent was able to attend. Heather won the arm wrestling competition so she got to go. They definitely made it a big deal. I wasn’t sure if Caroline graduated kindergarten or had just earned her doctorate degree. Her teacher was in full kimono attire. I think a couple of the kids wore kimonos, but mostly just suits and dresses.

Caroline had her name called and she had to walk super specifically and accept the certificate in a very specific action. Heather said she did it perfectly. Which I expected since she wanted to practice how to receive it all the time with me at home. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a video because the parent had to also stand up front and receive the certificate from their child. Luckily another parent managed to snag a pic of that for us. The child had to hand the certificate and tell their parent thank you for supporting them through kindergarten. I thought that was really great.

It was a long event too. The kids had to arrive at 9am. Heather and Caroline didn’t get home until around 1pm. The ceremony was pretty quick, but then everyone wanted pics with the teachers and hanging out. Getting a pic with the teacher was like waiting to see Santa.

Then all the kids just played and had fun for a while. And the parents were able to talk and take pictures of their kids with friends. It was such a family-like atmosphere. All the kids seemed to be so close.

So now Caroline is on spring break for 4 weeks! Nathan still has to go to school by himself every day. But we found a Japanese class for foreigners entering into 1st grade that Caroline will take to pass some time. Also now that she’s in elementary school, Honda will pay for a private Japanese tutor for her twice a week from April 1st.