A Sunday Smile

This year the Olympic games were held in Beijing and Seoul. Although the latter wasn’t televised in the US, every victory and each smile was recorded for the families of SLP students to remember for a lifetime. Last Sunday, SLP had their Mini Olympics. When I was first informed about this, I immediately thought it was a fancy name for what we call “field day.” As a child I never really understood why it was called “field day,” because we played games on a black top. Mini Olympics was appropriately named. About a hundred students and their families gathered in a small stuffy school gym where flags from all over the world hung from the ceiling. The games began after the torch lighting ceremony. Sparks of blues, reds, and golds awed the spectators. “The Eye of the Tiger” blared in the background of giggling excited children.



I was excited to finally meet the parents of my students at Mini Olympics. My new student’s grandmother was so precious. I was discussing the next plan of action when all of a sudden; a rice cake was popped into Ella’s mouth. His grandma had rice cake for the three of us standing around and we were all given equal treatment, but one was not enough. Seconds later, she came back for a second round. I didn’t even have enough time to finish chewing up the first one, so the three of us now looked like we were playing Chubby Bunny. Later, she managed to find me again and surprised me with a sugar coated donut hole, a large cherry tomato, and a cup of carrot juice.
I have never met such a competitive group of parents until Mini Olympics. There was one game where the mother and father ran a swing carrying their child around a circle. Children were literally dumped on the floor and the swing was passed to the next family. One girl smacked her head on the floor and was in tears and the mother had a “shake it off” attitude. When I was introduced to one father, he informed me that he would not be able to participate in any of the games, because he had recently torn a ligament in his leg. When we got to the relay race between the parents, the blue team (my team) was falling behind. Just when it seemed hopeless, the father zipped past the other team and we won!
The parents were rewarded for their efforts with toilet paper, car cleaner and cleaning gloves for the mothers and Hite (beer) for the fathers. The children received English storybooks. I think the fathers got the best prize.
After the excitement, our director took us (all of the teachers) out for dinner and beer at Outback Steakhouse. Overall it was a great day.


Above is a picture of Danielle Teacher and me


The flame from the opening ceremony- what a light show for preschoolers, right?


Two of my students from Libra class! They are so sweet!


ball throwing game!


True or False- I was the False girl ^^


This was my favorite game: the fathers had to do push-ups with their son/daughter on their backs :) Sooo cute!