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North celebrates first Winter Festival
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Kindergartners Natalia Griffin (left) and Lilly Kraynak showed off the progress they made on their plastic bottle snowmen during North's Winter Festival event.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Brady O'Hara couldn't hide his smile when he made a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Claus at North's Dec. 21 Winter Festival.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .North student Max Thomkins (left) zipped through the Winter Festival obstacle course on Dec. 21.
By SARAH FOOR
The students at North Elementary received an early Christmas gift on Dec. 21 when they celebrated their first-ever Winter Festival.
The event, which was a collaboration between North principal Tracy Kaschak and the school’s Parent-Teacher Organization, offered winter activities and crafts to entertain students in every grade.
Students rotated between activity areas every 20 minutes and had the chance to get their minds and their bodies moving. In the school gym, students ran the gauntlet through an obstacle course, practiced their aim at the snowman ring toss and tried to outsmart one another during Tic Tac Snow.
The Winter Festival offered Christmas crafts like picture frames and bead ornaments. Kids made unmeltable snowmen by coating the inside a plastic water bottle with white paint and adding a pipe-cleaner “carrot” nose.
Lastly, the students decorated snowmen cookies, drank hot chocolate and listened to a reading of “The Polar Express.” Mr. and Mrs. Claus visited the school and the PTO provided a photo for the students to take home for the holiday.
Kaschak welcomed the new winter tradition at the school.
“Most of our large carnival events happen at the close of the year, but we thought right before winter break seemed like a great time as well. It’s nice to let the kids enjoy themselves and burn off all that energy they store up in anticipation of our time off,” she said.