Finally Field Day!

The Seventh Grade had field day today. It was actually supposed to be on Friday, but we got rained out and except for the volleyball tournament (which we did anyway because they needed the gym for yearbook dedication today) we had to wait until today. Believe me, we were praying for good weather because I don't think we could have stood another day in class with these kids all hyped about field day.

For those of you who don't know (and I didn't because my schools never did field day), field day is a day at the end of the year where the kids go outside and do all sorts of competitions like kickball, tug of war, sack races, etc. The kids love it because they get to run around and act like goobers, buy lots of candy and hot dogs and nachos from the PTO, and generally burn off some energy.

From a teacher's point of view, it's not too bad although you spend 99% of your time chasing down kids and keeping them from doing anything stupid and dangerous (like having sex or throwing rocks at each other). We did send a few back inside into the "I got in trouble room" where they had to sit for the rest of the day, but all in all it wasn't too bad. The hardest part is rounding the kids up for the events, and then finding replacements for kids who all of a sudden decide that maybe they didn't really want to do the sack race.

The big hit of the day, however, had nothing to do with any of the games, but everything to do with our partners in education. As I've said before, I teach right outside of a major military base, and one of the units at this base is our Partner in Education. These guys and gals are awesome and do a lot for our school, including chaparoning at dances, helping proctor for the State Tests, and painting nails on Go Green day. Anyhow, they helped out at Field Day by bringing a one and a half ton truck and a humvee to the school for the kids to play on.

You have no idea how much fun kids can have climbing on a big ol Army truck. It looked, from a distance, like ants swarming over an anthill. They all decided to see how many kids can fit in the back of the truck and then how many kids can fit in the cab (answer: plenty). The kids loved the humvee as well as they could spin around and get dizzy in the turret on the top. Amazing. The soldiers stood there and laughed. Heck, we all stood there and laughed as it was so funny seeing this huge truck just crawling with kids hanging out the windows, playing with the steering wheel, and crawling in the back.

All in all a good day - no broken bones, no fist-fights, no cuts, no missing kids.

And a big ol' Hoo-ah! to our troops who took the time to make some great memories for our kids.