3rd Grade Recreation

Every year each class at my children's school has a "parents and children's recreation day". This year we decided to make pretty much a full day of it and started out early by getting all the things ready for the great "try to catch the slippery noodles as they go down the bamboo slide" lunch event. I managed to put my big foreign foot in it right from the start by suggesting rather loudly that perhaps the children should decide if they would like to help with setting up the bamboo slide or cutting the vegetables rather than saying (like the teacher did) - "okay the girls can go up to the cooking room to cut the vegetables and the boys can go outside and do the manly thing of tying together the bamboo slides." Of course no one else could see the point that I was making, but I felt better for having said it anyway! Despite the wobbly start to the day it turned out to be a lot of fun - after the preparation everyone played the dreaded dodgeball then they all jumped in the pool before trying to catch the slippery noodles. My daughter caught on very fast to the fact that if she sat at the bottom of the slide she could just eat from the sieve at the bottom where all the uncaught noodles end up till she was about to burst without having to even try and catch them. We livened things up a bit by also putting mini-tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon (cut up of course!), peach, pear, pineapple and finally "super balls" down the slide too.
After noodles it was on to smashing watermelons - literally. Each child was given a turn with a big whacking stick - they were blindfolded and spun around 3 times then had to try and whack the watermelon open. Of course by the time it was finally split open no one was actually interested in eating it, but they had fun all the same. Some shaved ice to finish things off before heading home.
All in all it was a great day, but reminded me of some of the different attitudes of the mothers in the class. I am the vice PTA representative for this class so had to do some of the organising with the main PTA representative (there are only 11 kids in the class so it is not exactly difficult!). I always think these events are about the kids and therefore getting them involved and having as much fun as possible is the most important thing. Unfortunately the other mother was so worried about the "flavour" of the sauce, the noodles being a little too overcooked, the sauce not being cold enough etc. In the end she finally relaxed and realised that the kids (and the parents for that matter) didn't care at all about the flavour of the stuff - they were just content on throwing as much stuff down the bamboo slide and making as big a mess as possible - and having a great time in the process. Perhaps I am managing to convert a few people in my town........