Students enjoying a hotdog at the K-2 Field Day |
On Wednesday, June 1st, the kindergarten to grade 3 students held their annual “field day” at the Gateway Recreational Centre in East Kildonan.
A wide angle of the Gateway Community Center as seen from Gateway Rd. |
The Gateway Recreational Centre allows teachers the option of playing games either indoors or outdoors. As it turned out, the weather this year was rainy so the activities took place indoors.
Students gathered for instruction after arriving at the Gateway Recreational Centre |
All events for the day were team based and meant to be fun. Unlike the grade 4-8 track and field day, individual accomplishments were downplayed in favor of team competition and co-operation.
The students were supervised by the K-3 classroom teachers – Sr. Anne (kindergarten), Mrs. Cambly (grade 1), Ms. Lutyj (grade 2), Mrs. Halayda (grade 3), along with Ms. Rowe, Ms. Bacon, Mrs. Walkow, and Mr. Picklyk. In the morning, each teacher was responsible for running one type of activity, and the students moved in small groups from activity to activity. In the afternoon, teachers did general supervision as the student groups played cooperative games. Mr. Dedio organized everything and was available to help out as needed.
If you look closely, you should be able to find a few of the supervising teachers somewhere in the background of each of these photos |
The students knew in advance they would be participating on different teams, and were pre-assigned to these teams based on the colour of shirt they were asked to wear. Each team had a mixture of students from K-3, and a letter was sent home to the parents asking them to dress their children in one of the following “team colours”: red, light blue, dark blue, white, grey, black, yellow, orange, purple, and green.
Some of the students on the red team |
The events in the morning were competitive and team based (such as tug of war), while the events in the afternoon were co-operative and meant to be fun (such as the parachute). There were 5 organized activities in the morning, and 3 in the afternoon.
At lunch time parent volunteers served each of the students a barbequed hot-dog, vegetables, a slice of watermelon, a juice box, and a frozen treat.
Students enjoying popsicles and watermelon during their lunch |
The Gateway Recreational Center had readily accessible washrooms, which were very convenient for the younger students. It also had a fenced in play area, which some students used during their hour of free time.
Everything wrapped up early in the afternoon, and the students assembled inside the Gateway Recreational Centre for an awards ceremony. Team awards were given out for 5 different categories:
- Most co-operative teams
- Most encouraging teams
- Best team spirit
- Most colourful teams
- Best organized teams
There were 10 different teams of students, and 5 award categories. By giving an award to 2 teams for each category, every student “won” a team award.
The K-3 field day appeared to be successful, and everyone involved seemed to enjoy the outing.