Why I love Kimachi Kindergarten

Sunday was the sports day for one of my kindergartens. Although I wasn't too excited at first to spend part of my weekend watching a bunch of kids running around it turned out to be a highlight beyond all imagination.

If you read the explanation of the Junior High "sports day" in one of my previous posts you get the basic synopsis of what the event is all about. This one however had a whole bunch of teacher and parent involvement seeing as the kids range in age from 3-5. More or less the teachers planned the event and the parents setup, took down and did all the muscle work that morning.

The four hours I spent watching and playing in this were awesome....but here are my top 3 moments of the day.


3) There was a relay in which the parents and staff, in teams of three, raced to a basket, put on a silly hat(mine was a luchador wrestling mask) dressed one of their team members in a silly outfit and then ran them to a podium in front of the 5 year olds. The kids just laughed the whole time. My group consisted of a dad, the nearby elementary school principal and myself....we got to dress the principal up as a construction worker. At the end of this event, each student had three "medals" they had made and distributed them however they wanted. At first it looked like poor old luker wasn't going to get any.....then it happened. One after another, four way cool little kids came and put their medals over my head and around my neck. (cue the big smile)

2) In one of the relay races the kids had to get in what used to be a cardboard box that must have been bomb proofed because none of the seems ever busted. They then crawled on their hands and knees about 30 yards. If you can imagine treads on a tank that's what it looked like. What made this so much fun was watching them poke their heads out every so often to see if they were there yet....usually they weren't. I think the picture does this event more justice then any explanation I can give.


1) So each child had been given what looked liked an empty paper flour sack to design however they see fit. These sacks were then taken, given two slots for arms and saved until Sunday. The object of this game was for the parents, who looked elsewhere as the kids were being slid into their flour sack, at the blow of a whistle to run up to the little tykes, and figure out who their kid was based on the artistic uniqueness of that child. Some might remember what four year old art looks like....for those who don't, well, they give Jackson Pollock a run for his money. (click his name for an idea)

What made this so awesome was it took the parents about 10 minutes to get the rules explained to them, and the whole time the kids were just waiting, not being able to see anything....you just had to wonder what they were thinking. After about a minute of just standing there you would see some kids twirling in circles, some waving their arms and a couple that were just still as statues. Once the whistle was blown, and the parents ran to the kids, if they wound up picking the wrong one the sack went right back over until the right parent/kid combo was accomplished. At which point in time they both picked up a ball and ran to the finish line.

By the end of the event some of the kiddos were so traumatized by having a sack taken off and put back on 3-4 times by strange mother or father that weren't theirs, that by the time they caught sight of their true guardian, they lost it and just bawled.

But after all that explanation, why not just see for yourself...