St. Andrew’s Priory School first-graders perform a hula today during a May Day celebration. Students from kindergarten through the 12th grade performed more than two-dozen songs during the program in the school gym. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

May Day is Lei Day and even if it’s a day early, it’s a still a lot of fun. If you watched today’s celebration at St. Andrew’s Priory School, you’d have to agree.

There was graceful dancing and a few fidgeting kindergartners. There were proud parents with more cameras than a presidential press conference. And over on the side of the packed gym there was Caroline Oda, head of the school, beaming with pride. She’s retiring at the end of the school year.

Each May Day show is a lesson about culture and history and the founder of the school, Queen Emma, she said.

"I think that what it teaches them is that they don’t exist in a vacuum," she said. "That they have a past and it’s very rich. They pick up something just living in Hawai'i. And they learn why people here try to be kind. Why people here have an appreciation for nature. It all comes from the values of Hawaiian culture."

And it doesn’t hurt that the 500 students get to sing and dance.

"What kids don’t love to sing and dance?" she said.

The students prepared for this for nearly the entire school year. In fact, the ninth-graders spent last night in the library, sewing their orange and yellow costumes. Sometimes more than once.

It wasn’t easy, said Randi Creamer, whose daughter is an eighth-grader.

"There are times when they practiced and rolled their eyes," she said, rolling her eyes, too. "There were other times when they were very happy with it."

First graders, seated, watch as third graders perform a hula to "’Royal Hawaiian Hotel." Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

And yes, she smiled just as broadly as an eighth-grader.

Jennifer Grems watched her daughter, a sixth-grader, and said the child is getting vision of the world she could never provide herself.

"She’s taking a piece of Queen Emma’s vision and it’s a part of her," Grems said. "It’s something I can’t give her. I’ve been exposed to the culture, but she’s getting it from a kumu hula."

The girls practiced for hours, many of them learning hula from scratch, she said.

"My daughter can remember all her previous dances," she said. "They all carry it with them."

Joyce Finley marveled at the costumes — sea green, pink, red, purple, gold — and tried to find her granddaughter amid the third-graders. This was her first May Day at Priory.

"We went to the swap meet to buy her hula dress Sunday," she said. "We needed a long ankle-length dress. We knew we’d find one there. It had to be pink."

Finley looked at the sea of girls. It was almost too much to take in.

"I love all the colors," she said. "Aren’t they pretty?"