School in Japan is like school in America in many ways, but it is also different.

Japanese children enter the first grade of elementary school in the April after their sixth birthday.

They attend elementary school for six years, where they study Japanese, arithmetic, science, social studies, music, crafts, physical education, cooking and sewing.

There are around 30 students in a typical elementary school class.

In Japan, school children walk to school together in the morning.

Boys and girls wear uniforms to school in Japan.

Students in Japanese schools study with textbooks and notebooks.

They learn to read.

Do these books look familiar? We have them in our media center.

Here they are written in Japanese.

Everybody looks forward to lunch. The students eat a school lunch. In some

schools they eat in a lunchroom and in other schools they eat in the classroom.

Here is a typical school lunch: soup, fish, bread, banana, and milk.

The afternoons are spent learning to write. You have to be a good artist when

you learn to write in Japanese, called kanji.

Just like in America, the best work goes on the wall, or

on the bulletin board.

Japanese students love special activities just like American students.

At PE they learn judo.

Going to the media center is fun.

Everybody goes to music.

Field trips are the best!

Students learn math, science, health, and social studies too.

Every day the students also clean the rooms, halls, toilets, and yards of their own school.

 Elementary school pupils get homework nearly every day. Often they have to do math drills and learn kanji, which are an important part of the Japanese language.

School in Japan is fun, just like it is in America.

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