Kids Web Japan

The club captain leads basketball practice

The baseball club often practices until it gets dark

There are two types of club activities at Shinanodai Elementary. One allows fifth and sixth graders to experience new things. There are six of these clubs, with themes ranging from story making or music to sports. The names and activities are decided by the students after some discussion. The other type of club activities consists of basketball or baseball clubs that the students can join if they want to and practice after school.

The basketball club has 40 members, with girls outnumbering boys three to one. The club practices five times a week, and during summer vacation the members get together to practice for seven hours from morning until evening, bringing bento to see them through the day. The baseball club, meanwhile, has 30 members, all boys. Practice time is limited to one hour after classes, so the boys play practice games according to special rules made especially for Shinanodai Elementary. Every day the teacher in charge of the club asks the members, "What would you like to practice today?" and the answer with the most votes is what the club practices that day.

Kato Anna

Kato Anna
(sixth grade, girls' basketball club captain)

"We can practice longer on weekends and during summer vacation, but we only get one hour for our regular weekday practices. I wish I could play basketball more," says Anna, who is so tall that she could easily be mistaken for a middle-schooler.

Kato Kentaro

Kato Kentaro
(fifth grade, baseball club captain)

Besides going to baseball practice five times a week, Kentaro also learns the soroban (Japanese abacus). He can even do multiplication and division of four- and five-digit numbers and has gained the prestigious fourth dan (rank) from the League for Soroban Education of Japan, Inc. This year he won the Aichi Prefecture abacus contest. He says, "I don't know if I'll continue playing baseball in middle school or not, but for now I like baseball and abacus about the same."

Kato Riku at work

Some of the students help out at home after classes are over. Sixth grader Kato Riku's family owns a pottery - fittingly for a family in the Shinanodai area, which is famous for its ceramics. The pottery was founded by Riku's great-grandfather and has been passed down to his grandfather and father, so it was only natural that Riku would help out. His job is to smooth out the rough edges using a machine, a job called hamasuri.

Kato Riku (sixth grade)

"I get pocket money according to how much time I have spent helping out, but how much I get is a secret. I have two older brothers, so I haven't thought about whether I'll take a job as a potter when I'm older."