From around noon the weather shifted. At the start of the day it was reasonably warm, for early March, and the sky was decently blue. Then the clouds came and everything turned grey. Rain was soon to follow. This actually fits rather well with the day.
It is nearing the end of the school year and today was the “Okuru-Kai (Send off event)” for the sixth graders. Each grade has a performance, be it a little play, musical, song, dance, that is dedicated to the sixth graders. While the there is a little message, there doesn’t need to be a thematic tie in. This means we get a lot of really cute performances. Tiny little First-graders as oni, complete with horn, are almost too adorable.
The sixth graders end the performance section of with an English play. This year we did “Wizard of Oz” and the girl really nailed it. They did a fantastic job and I’m really proud of them.
The session ended with the school singing a song to the on-stage sixth graders and the sixth graders responding with a song of their own.
Some of the sixth graders remained smiley throughout. And some slowly descended into tears.
I was having a hard time keeping a dry eye myself. Two things that always get me misty eyed are children expressing kindness to others (like the first-graders’ opening where they perform a group speech about how much the older girls mean to them) and my students getting emotional.
So a day like today where half the kids are being thankful and the other half are slowly shedding tears just means that I am had to spend a lot of time thinking about Spider-Man to keep a tear from rolling.
So, yeah, I’m okay with a little rain right now. And I’m also really going to miss these sixth graders.
Deadly Troubadour 