Staff writer
Students participated in a two-day, seven-event Winter Olympics during physical education class last week in the Marion Elementary School gym.
Although there was no torch or opening ceremony, physical education teacher Nicki Case played the “Olympic Fanfare” as she demonstrated event rules and talked to students about the 2014 Winter Olympics.
“Each of our events is modified from a real Olympic event,” Case told students. “A lot of the Winter Olympics events, like the ‘luge’ or ‘skeleton’ are based on snow and ice, but this is a no snow event.”
Events included curling, skiing, a hockey shoot, team ice-skating, two- and three-person bobsled, and a biathlon that simulated cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.
Case set up a station for each event and cautioned students to pay attention to each other and their surroundings while they took part in activities.
At the curling station, students could score points by sliding weighted laundry detergent containers near numbers taped on the gym floor.
While at the skiing station, students took up foam noodles as ski poles and jumped side-to-side down-and-back two lines of cones that reached to half-court.
In the hockey shoot, students hit slap shots past a goalie mask that sat atop a folding chair in front of a goal marked with tape on the gym wall.
To compete in team ice-skating, pairs of students slipped plastic grocery bags over their shoes, shuffled around a cone and returned to where they began to complete the event.
In two-person bobsled, students paired up again and took turns pushing each other on several plastic scooters Case had fastened together with duct-tape, while in the three-person bobsled students alternated pulling each other on exercise mats.
At the biathlon, Case instructed students to use upside-down carpet samples in the cross-country skiing portion, and in the rifle shooting portion of the event students laid on a mat and threw ‘foxtails’ into milk crates about 10 feet away before skiing back to finish.
Case said she structured event order for students to achieve a cardio workout with interspersed segments of rest.