Last day of yochien

In Japan, from my limited understanding, children go to preschool and kindergarten from ages 3-6 and then enter formal school at grade 1. B has had his graduation ceremonies from both schools. They were very cute. The children sang songs. For one school, they had written books and these books were presented at the graduation.

I'm not sure what the ceremony was supposed to look like, but for both there were speeches and the children sang songs. Other than that, there was presenting of diplomas and a lot of bowing. B seemed to know what was going on even if his parents didn't.

Today is his last day of yochien. In one school, he will continue on to grade 1. In the other, we are probably going to move him to the conversational class. I guess it's to be expected that I'm feeling nostalgic. I remember when he started Japanese music class as a toddler. It seems strange to think that now he's going to be in a full academic class...no more toys and circle time.

This summer we will have to practice a lot. We (he and I) are planning to go to Japan next spring. One of his friends told him about the cherry blossoms, and even though there are similar events in our city, I think it'd be nice to see them in Japan. I'm reading lots of travel blogs about going to Japan in order to inspire myself to save money and practice Japanese. So far it's helped with the saving money part but I still haven't been practicing Japanese enough.