January 25th, was Noah's final observation day at the yochien. I'm 99% sure of this, now I'm human and if one more should slip by before mid March then forgive me and I'll correct this one. But I seriously do not think so and I do think this is the final one. I know we have a "shopping day" coming up this month and the medal presentation in March. But I do think this is the final observation day. So we'll just go with this title for now. : ) This was the very next day after Branden's observation day and the snow and black ice day. What was on my "to do list" this day? Just 1 observation day and that's it. Noah and I went into the school. Noboru did come in with me for an hour before heading home and getting prepped for his work that day. But he knew this was indeed one of Noah's "lasts" and he wanted to come and I was glad he went. He left in the MPV after a while. This was the classes attempt at drawing their own faces. Noah's is the 2nd from the left at the top.
He made himself smiling. Noah's a very happy kiddo so, I think he did just great.
On the other side of the wall they all apparently did shuji with the Yayoi sensei. Here's Noah's. Says Noah. : )
I thought they all looked really good.
The first 2 yochien class years (for our school when Noah was a red badge and pink badge) was play, play and more play with little bits of learning mixed in. This final year of yochien has a lot of play still. But they are also really very focused on reading, writing, as you can see all the pencils, papers, pencil sharpener, globe for geography. The final year yochien kids are really getting prepped for entering the first grade (ichinensei) And Noah's been in Kumon since age 3 and a half so he's very ready for all that awaits him at elementary school. We watched the kids sing many songs. And then we went upstairs and that's when Noboru left.
We (mother's and about 4-5 dad's) all did an art project/game with our kids. Think along the lines as the game Candyland. Our kids made a game piece, 1 side was their face and the other side was their mom or dad's face. And we made a huge human sized game and we also wrote questions. Such as skip 2 spaces. Another question was for the mommy's, "which actor do you think is cute?" Another question for the kids, "what vegetable do you dislike?" "what's your favorite character?" It was fun. Noah won the first round we all played and he came in last place the 2nd time we played. But we all had so much fun. Us mom's chit chatted our brains out. The Jogo-san and I were chatting the entire time. And with Toma-kun's mom and the other mom's in our game. We had 4 huge games going at once upstairs. Next thing you know....the half day was done. It was 11am already and the kids half day was over. So, Noah and I waved good bye to all our friends, got into my tiny red car. We went to the store to get 2 more days of food since the weather was just so cold last week. And we went home. And had lunch.
2 days later, last Friday. Was my mother's luncheon. And that is for surely our last one. The Jogo-san and I road up in leggings mom's car. We chatted the whole way there. We had our final luncheon at the ANA (All Nippon Airways) hotel in Narita. We were like the last mom's to arrive. We had a room in the back/side reserved for us. When we walked in, the "yearbook mom's" (remember there's the yearbook mom's or the shaon kai mom's. I'm in the shaon kai team. So, the yearbook mom's handed us these huge sheets of yearbook pics. They had about 8 sheets of these papers. Noah had 6 pics, and they wanted me to pick which photo from those 6 that I liked best that would ultimately be in the yearbook. The Jogo-san was meanwhile choosing her daughter's. The Jogo-san finished first and came to see Noah's. I was debating between 2, but decided which one. I had kindly told the yearbook mom, "this one please" in Japanese, so she wrote the number down and that will be the picture I see of Noah in the yearbook. Everything done, decided pretso change-o just like that. I think the yearbook mom's are doing a fab job. And we appreciate it. I know us shaon kai mom's are also doing an equally fab job, and I know they'll love what we're doing when they see.
So, the Jogo-san and leggings mom and I sat down. We chatted. She told me...I skipped breakfast, so she was ready for this buffet. I laughed, because she's so funny. : ) And we went and got our first serving. We all ate so much. I started with a big salad, plate of fresh fruit (honey dew, pineapple etc) , then I had some pasta, the guy you could order 3 types of pasta and he'd make it for you. I picked fresh tomato and basil. This was great. I had fresh bread with that. After that I went back for a smaller fruit plate. I had a few iced teas. And then I had 1 crepe. They had ice cream here and a whole bunch of things, but I was done, my tummy was full. Many mom's still munched. 8 mother's did not show up for the final luncheon. Anyway the mother's that were going to pick up their kids at the regular time left. And so they left and that left only 9 of us, who let our kids do kagai until 3pm. Around 2pm, we left the restaurant and headed to the Jogo-san's house where I parked my car. Then we all headed to the yochien. Like a gang we went all cars following other cars. : ) And arrived at the school. The Yayoi sensei knew we had the luncheon. We were all sorta dressed up when we picked up our kids. Noah was having a blast, he was running all over the school grounds with his friends. we quickly went home. And then I switched clothes and we swung and picked up Branden. We had a nice quick dinner and enjoyed Friday and the weekend to have started. Anyway...that's what happened last week.
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