PYP Olympics

The first Friday of school the children participated in the PYP Olympics. (PYP = Primary Years Program = elementary school for those of you in the US.)

The children were divided into five groups, to represent the five rings of the olympic flag. Lilli was on the green team, representing Africa. Tipton was on the yellow team, representing the Americas.

First, there was a parade of classes/nations. All the children carried little olympic flags that they had colored in class. Tipton is standing next to his teacher, Chris (they call their teachers by the first name over here.)

Lilli is sitting in Luciana's lap. Luciana is one of her teachers. Her other teacher, Malin, is the one in the red shirt.
After the "parade" they children divided into their color groups and walked over the to the field next to Bladins. There they sat in circles, forming the pattern of the Olympic rings. It was very cool. I did not even try to take any pictures of that, however. The effect would be lost unless the photos were taken from a great height. Having said that, there was someone from the school taking pictures from the top floor of a nearby building.

After the photo the children went back to their individual class groups.

There were several events for the children to compete in.

There was the 'balance a ball on a paddle and race' competition.

And the 'run to the cone and toss the bean bag into the hoop' competition. This was by far Lilli's favorite. They had a little water break after this competition. But instead of resting, Lilli continued to do the event over and over and over again.

There was the sack race. I got a video of Lilli competing in this event. They had to climb into the sack and hop out to a cone, then turn around and hop back. Tipton did great. The younger kids, the ones in Lilli's class, were just too funny to watch. Most of them could barely see out of the bag. And then they 'hopped' it was more like they were just jumping up and down, so there weren't really going anywhere. Like I said - it was just too funny!



There was a frisbee throw competition.

There was also an obstacle course. I didn't get any good pictures of that, though.

When the events were over, there was a closing ceremony. The ceremony included each child receiving a laminated certificate saying that they participated in the 2008 PYP Olympic games.

I like how Lilli is checking out Savannah's to see if she got the same thing.