Dia de Deportes

Every section (primary, middle and high school) has a Sports Day at Bolivar, and every teacher has an opinion about it.  I'd heard near horror stories from primary Sports Day, but heard high school Sports Day is always fun.  Going into middle school Sports Day this past Friday, I really hadn't heard anything good from the other teachers or students about it, but I decided to go in with an open mind anyway.  In middle school, students and teachers in 6th-8th grade are placed in one of four houses: Dolphins, Squid Squads, Sting Rays and Barracudas (my house).  Yes, kind of like in Harry Potter, minus the Quidditch.  And magic.  In these houses students compete in various events throughout the day to earn points in hopes of winning the day overall.  They also get points for things like helping clean up trash or the sports equipment and sportsmanship.  In the morning we rallied with our houses to get pumped up, practice our cheer and make our way down to the soccer field to meet up with the rest of the houses. 

House flags & bulletin boards

Barracudas getting pumped.  Really.  We are.

When we made it down to the field, every house sang their cheer and then we got started with events.  Students from each grade in each house participated in track and field events including short and long distance relays, followed by a sort of obstacle course which had three-legged race, potato sack racing, something involving an inner tube and an army crawl. 

Then came the tug of war competition, which is were the teachers' "spirit" really came out, I for one lost my voice from screaming at students to "Puuuulllll!!!!!".  The muddy fields made for extra interesting conditions.  I had a FABULOUS video clip of Rob and Kristin really "encouraging" their Sting Rays, but I accidentally deleted it.  Dammit.  It was good.  But here is a quick clip of a fellow Barracuda teacher helping our kids out:

 

Our 7th graders kind of got smoked on this one.

After all this we finally got a break, time I took to go order our Breaking Dawn tickets online, obviously.  After break was time for other various sports, I watched the boys 7th and 8th grade basketball games, which the Barracudas took 1st in both.  Then there was boys soccer then time for lunch.  As you can tell, the day got less and less exciting, I got more and more tired and hot and the kids became less and less well behaved.  After lunch there was the pool events which were at least some what entertaining if for no other reason than our boys who participated (and were generally the only ones who participated throughout the day) had no idea what was going on, and to be honest neither did I, but amusing nonetheless.

The Dolphins won the day overall, with Sting Rays in 2nd, Barracudas in 3rd and the previously first place Squid Squads in 4th.  Overall, I think there are some definite improvements that can be made to the day to make it better for kids and teachers alike, but I wouldn't say it was a terrible day (just long and hot) but it wasn't my favorite day either; I'd call it a draw.

More pictures from throughout the day: