On days before and after of the Sports Day, many elementary, junior and senior highschools hold athletic meet. Elementary schools consider this sports day as one of the biggest school event of the school year. Not only students but teachers and parents take part in some of the games or races. Students enjoy games at athletic meets, such as tug of war and cavalry battle game, footrace, hurdle race, relay race and some other kind. The red-white caps are actually convenient in games, when students are divided into two teams, red and white.
White team wears the cap with white side out, and red team red side out.
This is one of the biggest events in a school year. So, all the students and teachers spend lots of time for rehearsals from September, when students get back to school from 6 week summer break. They have rehearsals for marching, orders of races, dancing with music so that they can show the best performance on the Sports Day. Parents and guests look forward to seeing all the performances too. I hope you get the idea of what Sports Day is at schools in Japan.