Sports Day

I have learned that it is important to approach whole school events with a deep breathe and a sense of cautious optimism. Especially when there has been little to no communication about how the day is expected to run.

So when Sports Day arrived, I was not entirely looking forward to it.

I needn't have worried.

The day began with a costumed bike parade that included all the children from nursery to grade six. It was fabulous, costumes included: a hula dancer, hello kitty, buzz lightyear, little red riding hood, a canuck, and more. The bikes were also decorated there were school bus bikes, a cardboard boat, a horse, a unicorn, and others! There were also two baby strollers one decorated like a castle, and another as a bunch of stuffed animals. The parade was lead by the local RCMP and as the parade lead through the village everyone came out to watch and the kids were waved at along the entire route. It was a fabulous parade and the kids got to be the stars!!

After the parade it began to rain, and rain some more, then more...and more. So instead of hitting the field for rotation stations we all went into the gym to watch the races. Each class had three races:
1) All the girls in the grade.
2) All the boys in the grade.
3) Everyone in the grade!

After the children had finished their races the organizer had various groups of adults race each other. It was awesome until the Father of one of my students ran straight into a wall. Yup, you read that right. The race was to one side of the gym and then back again and on the way back he didn't stop. He smacked into the wall and dropped. There was a moment of silence and then his daughter screamed "DADDY!!" and ran screaming across the gymnasium floor. One of her aunts picked her up and held her tight. I made my way over to her and tried to comfort her as she sobbed. Three more of my students arrived to stand with her and I realized I needed to get them out of the way for when the paramedics arrived. Getting my students to leave their sobbing friend took a lot of coaxing and two of the girls declared I was a horrible person. Heh. At this point the Principal stepped in and said lets break for lunch and meet on the field at 1:00.

At 12:50 it was pouring but then magically it stopped at 1:00. The field was surprisingly dry and we were able to start cycling through the different stations on the field. My class started at the face painting station and requested things like unibrows, beards, black eyes, and bunny faces. As we moved through the stations two of my girls battled to find out which one could have more crying fits in order to gain attention but even they couldn't bring the rest of us down it was a glorious fun filled afternoon. As the day came to an end the injured runner arrived at the field in a wheelchair, under concussion watch. He had stitches in his gums, stitches in his forehead, and stitches in his nose, I saw the collision and he is lucky he didn't break his nose or neck. His daughter ran to him and embraced him in a gentle bear hug, one relieved kid.