Sports tests and bento lunch

One of my coolest action snaps ever!
Originally uploaded by Jason In Japan.

A few weeks ago at Taisha Chu we had the annual Sports Test for all three grades - a battery of tests that every students takes to measure their physical fitness.

I was able to head over to the gym on two of the days to snap pics of the 1nen sei and the 3nen sei.
They have to do a variety of things - sit-ups, line sprints, standing broad jump, a grip test, and some kind of flexibility test using a sitting device that looks like this...



My new 7th graders are not shy around me at all - they've all known me since they were 3rd graders in elementary school.



It's great to already have a grasp on their personalities and habits, even if I don't know all their names yet. They should be a great class of kids.

It's a different story over at Hamayama JH, where I only know about half of the new 7th graders, and even the half that I do know, I only just met last September.
So Taisha still feels like "home", but I'm enjoying my time at Hamayama more and more.

We didn't have school lunch the same day the 3nen sei (9th graders) had their sports test, so I walked around at lunch and snapped some pics of the kids eating their bento lunches outside in the nice weather.



So click on any of the above pics for more from these few days. And the pic at the very top of this post was a happy accident - I had changed the setting on my camera and was testing it out when I got this snap of one of the 7th grade boys flying through the air. cool shot! Of course, I wouldn't know how to replicate taking this shot if I tried, but I like the effect of having the background slightly blurry while the subject is in focus.

Enjoy!
-Jason