Photo Gallery: West School Holds Olympic-Sized Field Day

The United States, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Great Britain, Israel, Jamaica, Greece, Cyprus, Japan, Madagascar and Cameroon…and those were just some of the countries represented at the Field Day last Friday, June 10.

West School students spent the day decked out in their adopted country’s colors and competed in a number of activities in this Olympic style athletic event.

Students kindergarten through second grade competed in the morning, while the older students had their turn in the afternoon.

All the games, from fill-the-bucket to kickball had one thing in common: teamwork.

“[They’re] all team building games,” explained Matt Bernstein, the physical education teacher at the West. “You cannot do one game without someone else helping.”

The Olympic-style Field Day is the brainchild of Bernstein.  He has run the program for the last two years at the West, and for a year at the South School before that.

Each classroom is assigned a country. There are a number of stations being run at once, and as each class moves from one station to the next, they march there waiving their country’s flag.

Aside from the Field Day games, Bernstein said the students work for two months designing their team shirts and flags. The students also learn about their country and present facts about their country at the start of the Field Day.

“It’s a day to come together, to understand how important every single person is,” Bernstein said. “You find that out by team unity.”

Take a look at photos from the Field Day in the media gallery above. Special thanks to Matt Bernstein for providing the captions.