Monday morning, under bright, sunny skies, Clement Elementary School students participated in an American Sport Day to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
During the event, students participated in a multitude of different events such as volleyball, kickball, connect four dash and more. When not playing games, kids cooled off in the shade with slushies. Additionally, members of the Clement Fire Department were on standby during the event, occasionally spraying kids with a fire hose to cool them off even more.
The event was held to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. As school is preparing to wind down for the summer, kids will not actually be in classrooms during this July 4th for them to enjoy typical festivities together, so school leaders celebrated the occasion a little early.
“This is just a fun way for the kids to celebrate the 250th birthday of America before school lets out,” said principal John Langley. “Right now, we’ve got several groups of kids at each activity. They’ve got 10 minutes at each sport or activity before we blow a horn and then groups will move on to a different game or sport. We’ve got volleyball, kickball, baseball, all sorts of American sports. Then, we’ve also got slushies on hand to help cool them off.”
According to Langley, the school’s celebration of the milestone America is passing this summer doesn’t stop there. Leading up to the event, several kids throughout the school engaged in multiple projects to engage them into the patriotic spirit and help them learn about past and present history.
“Several of our students did projects to help get them excited for this,” said Langley. “I know several students had to report on an American sport or athlete for their history classes. We also had our second-graders do a wax museum. They had to dress up as a historical figure and deliver speeches to their classes.”
For their projects, several students were required to do a deep dive into the history of their sport or athlete, detailing the start of their life or creation and how that sport or person became a household name in American sports. The day of the event, several teachers, students and other school staff donned red, white and blue attire to further get everybody in the mood. Additionally, a man dressed up as Uncle Sam payed a visit to the school, greeting students in their classrooms to help get them in the American Spirit.