athletics day | Diary of an Adventurous Retiree

The only ‘normal’ day we had this week was Monday! I put ‘normal’ in parenthesis as no day at my school is ever what I would consider normal – there is always something happening and if you teach here you need to be flexible, on your toes and have a good sense of humour. I am not complaining – I would’t have it any other way. There is never a dull moment. So with a little bit of attitude adjustment I managed to get through Hilarious Heads on Athletics Day and two exhausting days of FUNSCAPES.

So back to the beginning – Monday the ‘normal’ day went off pretty well if you don’t count the chair that fell on my foot first thing in the morning. It was sore for a brief moment but then I forgot about it. But at 1 p.m. it really started to hurt and I couldn’t walk comfortably on it. I sat in on two parent interviews with a colleague and then checked my phone messages only to discover that my dental appointment had been changed and I had 15 minutes to get there! My mouth felt fine but my foot was sore. The dentist apologised that he couldn’t fix that part of my anatomy! By this time I really found hobbling quite painful and as the doctor was just next door to the dentist I decided to have it checked out. She prodded and pulled and it hurt like hell. She told me to ice it, take a Myprodol and go for an x-ray first thing the next morning. I had visions of myself in plaster to my knee for the next six weeks – but a miracle occurred. Fifteen minutes after taking medication, all pain disappeared and I haven’t looked back! Walking normally and not even a bruise.

Enough about me – back to the fun week at SVPS. On Tuesday we celebrated our school’s birthday! 37 years ago my two older daughters started there in Grade One and Grade Three! We even have a member of staff who started there in Grade One too. We celebrated by having a hilarious head day and everyone came in the most elaborate hair styles, hats and face make-up. I wore a wig of red streamers which my amused my little girls no end. But I was so busy taking photographs I forgot to get one of myself!

Such imaginative ideas

Hilarious – these made me laugh

Happy hats and hair

Elaborate hair, hats and make up

Really rather cute

These girls have fun hats

Very smart and cute girls

Love the hair – love the hat

All ready to go down to the field for Athletics Day – Note the big shoes!

The Foundation Phase also had their athletics day which began after the parade of the best hats and singing the birthday song to ourselves. The staff hats were hilarious too.

Winning Staff

The Principal leading a Movement Song

Two of my ‘room grans’ grooving to the movement song.

It was a glorious day and the races went well

Racing to the finish line

FUNSCAPES have taken on a new format. I didn’t get to do what I usually like to do – bird watching but maybe next time. This year instead of the whole school being mixed up into different clubs each grade offered four to choose from. The good part of this was that we got kids in our grade. My Funscape was GAMES. It was well attended by mostly boys! I have to admit it. I missed my girls! But Boys are Fun too – challenging – but Fun. I learned very quickly to change the activity often and to have lots of outdoor breaks too. We played cards games, board games, dominoes, pick-up-sticks, tricky fingers, lego and other construction games. These were wonderful experiences for digikids some of whom had never even heard of snakes and ladders or ludo. It helped with their counting, matching, adding and thinking strategically. Pick up sticks – wow – so good for fine motor coordination. The kids were demanding – I had to split myself in many pieces to help with game instructions, sort out disputes and calm the losers. And it was oh so noisy! At the end of the first day I was wrung out and exhausted and had to brace myself for Day 2 which went way better now that they understood the rules! I asked the kids how they’d enjoyed it. To my surprise the feedback was good. They wanted to do it every day! Well they can as each one received a gift pack of games and a large lollipop to take home.

You go down the snake and up the ladder

Carefully now – don’t let the others move

Construction went down a treat

Now remember which direction to move

Girls are good at this

Now let me think

A line in our school song goes – “It grows in fame each year” and indeed since its humble beginnings 36 years ago SVPS has grown both in number and fame. My two older children were among the first students and two of our grandchildren have already passed through its portals. In fact when it was a brand new school I was its first Itinerant Speech Correction Teacher and I was pretty new then too! How amazing it is to be back in my more mature years.

To celebrate we had a Funky Feet Day. Everybody – staff included – decorated their feet in a multitude of different ways. It was so much fun seeing hairy monster toes, stripy socks, colourful toe nails, beribboned shins and tattooed feet traipsing up and down the corridors. Fun and Funky it was and there were prizes for the most creative designs.

I involved my poor, patient husband in preparing my feet and toes knowing that my girls would be highly disappointed if I didn’t make an effort. It took two episodes of The Good Wife (I have a media player) for Hubby to glue on and paint nails and apply colourful tattoos to make my feet look gorgeous. There were a few grunts of keep your feet still, or point your toes this way but the entire procedure was pretty relaxing as I just lay and watched the movie! My little girls loved the result and oohed and aahed and exclaimed, Your feet look so pretty!

Results of Hubby’s Foot Work

Well so did theirs! It was also Athletics Day for the Foundation Phase and they all came dressed up in their house colours and most had feet to match. It was difficult to choose a winner but in the end I had to go for a cute little girl in green with feet proudly declaring which house she was running for!

A selection of Funky Grade One Feet

The Winning Feet

I was a score keeper for the races so didn’t have a second to take photographs but the girls ran well in their championship races and thoroughly enjoyed the fun race in the mommys’ shoes. But it was a long time for them to watch all the other classes run so when it was time to return for the anniversary treat they were ready and waiting!

Here they are enjoying their delicious jam doughnuts!

Happy Anniversary, SVPS

And did we do any work at all that day? Well after all the fun and celebrations there was still an hour and a half of school – so yes we did do some handwriting and reading as well as creating a cover for our books for next term! I have hard working little girls in my class!