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North Elementary School hosts annual Winter Fest
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.North Elementary School second-grade students cheered on their teammates while waiting for their chance to participate in the relay portion of the Winter Fest event.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A North Elementary School second-grade student went under a limbo pole during the Christmas relay portion of the Winter Fest event.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Peg Flynn of the Green Team read a story to North Elementary School first-grade students during the Winter Fest event.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A North Elementary School student smiled wide as he got his picture taken with Santa Claus during the Winter Fest event.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A North Elementary School student worked on making his winter picture frame during thr craft portion of the Winter Fest event.
By TIM CLEVELAND
As it has done for the last several years, North Elementary School hosted its Winter Fest event on Dec. 18 to give its students a chance to participate in several winter- and holiday-themed acvitities.
The committee chair for the Winter Fest was PTO parent Nicki Hernan, who said the two-hour event came together due to the work of several parents.
“I was not involved in the initiation of the event. I’ve helped a couple years; my daughter’s a second grader,” she said. “I like to help wherever I’m needed, so that they needed someone to chair this event and I said I was happy to help and it was a collaboration between several parents.”
The approximately 180 students in grades kindergarten through four were divided up and sent off to five different stations where they spent 20 minutes before switching stations. The stations were a Christmas relay in the gymnasium where they did a snowman relay and a Christmas relay; a story time station in the library where Peg Flynn of the Green Team read Gingerbread stories to the children. Afterwards they colored bookmarks; a photos and frames station in the fourth-grade wing, where grades kindergarten, one and two had their picture taken with Santa Claus while grades three and four had their pictures taken in a winter theme. They also decorated prepped frames; a craft station in two different classrooms, where they decorated prepped reindeer ornaments and thumb print tags and made reindeer food; the final station was snacks and drinks, where the children decorated sugar cookies gingerbread-shaped men with white icing, sprinkles and candy decorations. They also drank cocoa with mini candy canes and marshmallows and watched short Christmas movies.
More than 20 volunteer parents helped make the event come off without a hitch.
“We have the room parents who are going to be traveling with the classes and interacting with the kids,” Hernan said. “Then we have parents who are designated for specific stations.”
Hernan said the event was a good chance for the children to interact with their peers in a non-traditional school setting.
“We want to get them into the spirit and make it a fun and learning environment for them and be able to socialize in a safe setting and interact with their classmates and see their parents in school, which is always a treat for young kids,” she said.