Sports Day Final Prep.

the plan we constructed for the obstacle course

Tomorrow is sports day, and although we've been preparing for over two weeks now, if it does indeed rain, we will have to possibly reschedule for Friday. However, the forecast is positive of dry, if slightly cloudy weather, so everything is being prepared for tomorrow. We've planned the obstacle course last week, and have been busy putting it all together. After we'd had it approved by our supervisor, we created the obstacles themselves. 

What was most important for us, was that everybody would be able to enjoy passing the obstacle course, no matter their year group. Therefore, we decided that while it needed to be adequately challenging, it shouldn't be impossible to cross, as there will be the small year sevens as well as the fit year thirteens. 

We also wanted to integrate the surrounding environment into the course, as we had been placed in a very nice nook at the edge of the school grounds with some extremely climbable trees and a small clearing, so tying a ladder to one of the trees and making the end goal the retrieving of an item from said tree was logical. Naturally, our supervisor had some doubts as to the safety of such a contraption, which we quickly put to rest by testing it out that very lunchtime. I do understand that it certainly poses a risk, but I think that with ample warnings and proper instructions, it could be a novel addition the course, as it certainly has never been done before. We won't be making the smaller kids climb the full way up anyway, just enough so that they are able to feel as if they climbed a tree. We tried out the hoola hoops and the weaving poles today, although they are weaving cones now, and they worked out well, even when some of the bigger students tried them out.  (We had asked beforehand if we could borrow equipment.)

laurel wreath, modelled on teddy bear

One of the questions we asked ourselves what could this retrievable item be. While chocolates were a tempting preposition, it would be rather difficult to dangle them from a branch, and anyhow we felt like it was altogether too boring. So we decided to stay in line with the olympic theme we had started (I've made a life-size Olympic flame which we've hung up on the wall next to the house teams) and we decided to try a laurel leaf wreath. once they retrieved it, they would have to put it on and either run back or go through the course again, making sure the wreath didn't fall off. Using a wire base, covering it with crepe paper and attaching some paper leaves, I made a rather simple wreath which the group approved. 

We've gotten our schedule for tomorrow, agreed to come to school earlier to set everything up and run through it one last time. I'm pretty excited.