Claire's Happiokai Performance

This last Sunday was Claire's yochien's "Happiokai" performance. It is an amazing production that requires tremendous work by the senseis and lots of practicing by the kids!

All of the classes, from the 2 1/2 year olds to the 5 - 6 year olds, sang songs, did dances and performed plays. They had different costumes for the dances and plays and wore their uniforms for the songs.

It was held in the, colder than the outside, gymnasium of the local, also called Kawashimo, elementary school. And it was cold. Wow. It was really cold. But I came better prepared this year!

I brought a Japanese chair and wore my coat with a snuggie over that. Tights under my jeans and two pairs of socks. And hand warmers. And blankets. I brought extra snuggies, blankets and hand warmers for fellow cold people. And a quilt to sit on. I was probably the warmest American there, but that had to do with the cuddly bug who sat on my lap when she wasn't performing!

I have a freakish amount of videos and pictures and I couldn't keep it under my standard 30 seconds for videos. It was just TOO.CUTE.

Here's the song for the Japanese kids to learn English and for the American kids to pick up easily. This is from the rehearsal, a few days before the performance.

When I was playing Sudoku today on the shinkansen, I was singing this song to myself, adding an 8 and a 9 at the end. :)

And here's the easy one for the Japanese kids and the learning one for the American kids. Claire tells me it's the Japanese color song! :) This is from the actual performance. There were tons of different backdrops that the senseis created.

Claire posed between performances by her artwork that they brought from the yochien.

This is her costume from the girls' dancing performance.

And this is Claire as a crab for the "Monkey and the Crab" performance.

Here's the entire cast of the "Monkey and the Crab"...also some bees and hmmm...loaves of bread?

The oldest boys did a samurai dance.

Claire shone in her all girls' dance!

This is my favorite picture!

I'm going to take pity on you, dear reader, and just post the link to all of the pictures here and then perhaps, (I'm not savvy), you could search for "wagspartyof6" which is my channel on YouTube. This link might work.  So if you really, really want to watch all of the videos...you could do so...but don't worry...it's not expected!

We got there at 9:00, it started at 9:30 and ended around 2:00 with a break for lunch. It's a MAJOR event and I feel fortunate to be able to have my child a part of something as spectacular as this! If it were just heated...I would love it! :-0

Thanks Kawashimo for the memories!!!!!!!