One Japanese school activity that happens nationwide in January every year is Karuta.  Karuta is a card game that goes something like this.  There are 100 different cards and each card has the last half of a Japanese "tanka" poem written on it.  The cards are laid out on the floor and the kids gather around them.  An announcer reads out a poem -from the beginning - and the first person to correctly recognize the poem and grab the corresponding card gets to keep the card.  The strategy is to have the poem memorized so that when the first half of the poem is read, you know which card matches with it.  The person with the most cards wins.

So technically, if you memorize all 100 poems and you have quick reflexes, you can take all of the cards.  Some kids take this seriously enough to go that far and spend hours ahead of time trying to memorize the poems.

There are also regional, prefectural and national Karuta championships for the kids who get really good at it.  Karuta is a fun time for all the kids and most of them get into it - even the ones who don't like studying that much.