Please excuse the low quality pics, just wanted to share some students' stuff. The first is "What did you do during your summer vacation?" short essays - the 2 most popular answers.

"I went to my grandfather's house in August. I visited grave. I looked ghost. I had a good time."

"I study homework in August, then reading a book. It was very tired."

The kiddies have a cumulative test in every subject the day they get back from each vacation. So, they have to spend a significant part of each vacation (summer vacation was about a month) studying. The average for the 2nd grade english test was around a 46 - and it's pretty usual that test score averages are less than 50 (yes, out of 100). I can't work out the benefit of this, but perhaps there is one? Obon is also during summer vacation, when families visit relatives' graves.

In addition to the tests, the 3rd graders were also greeted back at school with the manual labor task of harvesting the special rice that had been planted in a "WE CAN!!" pattern into the field outside the school. It looked like fun! Here you can maybe make out the "AN".