The Flying Panda Chronicles: Game Planet...Because the PTA Owns the Name "Fun Day"

That's right, you read that title correctly. Any sort of weekend or afternoon event held by a school entity, such as Primary Student Council, cannot be called a "Fun Day" even if that name is the most apt description of what is intended to happen. But I'm not bitter.

Anyway, Primary Student Council continued its run of fun events for students and hosted something that they decided to call Game Planet, which I actually like the more I think about it. It was supposed to be a carnival-type afternoon at school, with various games set up for kids to go around and play and win prizes.

This event happened a couple of months ago, but I have some fun pictures from it so I might as well write a bit about it. The Student Council kids thought up all of the games, decided how much to charge for entrance, etc. - so they were the idea people. I was the one who executed their plan. They had 7 games, open for about an hour and a half, then at the end we had raffle prizes, which have become extremely popular since I introduced the concept at the Halloween party.

Side note: there's a game called Tombola that's the kids really like and always want to do at events there. You just have a wall of prizes, with a number attached to each one (say,1-50). Then you've got the numbers 1-100 written on slips of paper in a jar and a kid draws a paper out. If their number matches one on a prize, they get that prize. I really, really dislike the concept of this game for the same reason that I've now started disliking raffle prizes: there is simply no effort, time, focus, or any sort of redeeming feature that the kids have to exhibit for this game. All they have to do is pull a piece of paper out of a jar, or in the case of raffles wait for their number to get pulled out of a jar, and they win something. They like the game because they don't have to do anything to win, and it's pure luck. In fact, I hesitate to even call it a "game" because there is absolutely no element of competition or sport. The fact that this is a lot of kids' favorite "game" really irks me.

OK, moving on. The games that we had at Game Planet were Sand in Cups, Long Jump, Ring Toss, Penalty Shootout, Musical Chairs, Treasure Hunt, and Bike Racing. Here's a Penalty Shootout shot:

Here are some Musical Chairs pictures:

Notice the big ham in the red and black shirt. He's in P4 and is a great kid.

Here are some Long Jump photos, the kids got pretty into this one:

Treasure Hunt was pretty fun - I got Hugh, the P5 teacher, to set it up. He hid little pieces of candy all around the preschool playground, then we gathered all the kids around and told them to find it when we let them onto the playground. Preschoolers and P1s got a small head start.

Then everyone else raced into the area:

And they went as far as they had to to locate that candy:

Bike Racing was the brainchild of Bruce and Kito, my 2 P6 Student Council reps. They made a course around the school with chalk, cones, and chairs, and kids went around it 2 at a time. It was quite popular, and they deservedly got praised for the idea.

And then, of course, at the end we had raffle prizes. But I added a twist this time: because I had gotten about a dozen, I had enough to give kids a choice when their number got picked. So I got a box and drew big question marks on it, called it the "Mystery Box," and every time a student came forward they had a choice between a prize that I showed them...and whatever lay in the Mystery Box. At least I could add a decision-making component to the activity.