Las Olimpiadas - Another Reason to Paint Your Face!

I know it goes without saying that I suck at keeping this updated, but I´ll continue to keep saying I´ll try harder to keep it updated probably until the day I leave...

Towards the end of March (yes I realize this is a delayed post) we had a thing called Las Olimpiadas, which was an academic competition between all the afterschool programs. We each had to pick 15 kids to represent our programs, and all events were divided up into three age groups: chiquitos (5-7 years old), medianos (8-11 years old), and grandes (12-14). Picking kids from Semillas was really hard because this happened all during summer vacation, meaning that we had on average, 100 kids per day coming to program. Regardless, we finally narrowed it down to fifteen and we had a blast with them.

Each program was in charge of two events, so Semillas took geography and science experiment. Each program had to construct their own popsicle stick bridge the week before, and then bring it to the Olimpiadas to have it weighed down with rocks; the bridge that held the most won. We also did a geography activity with the medianos and grandes (chiquitos got to color while this competition was going on). The medianos had to put a puzzle together of a map of South America, then go through and label all the countries and capitals. The grandes got a study sheet with facts about the Ecuadorian provinces and regions and had to compete in a Jeopardy-style game. The kids that were selected for Olimpiadas knew ahead of time which activities they would be competing in, so they were able to study beforehand. It was really neat to see how much they studied for this; they really do take the program-representation thing seriously. The other events included math, language arts, memory, and a relay race.

We held the Olimpiadas at John Drury, which is the tech school where we hold Semillas. Because Ricardo also happens to be the coordinator for the church music group, he allowed us to "borrow" the amps and speakers for the day, so we had music going for the whole opening and closing part. Each program had their own color; Semillas was yellow, Manos was blue, and Valdivia was red. All the Semillas staff wore BC Welcome Wagon shirts (thank you BC for so many donations...don´t worry, they´re all now washed and returned to the donations pile), yellow bandanas, gold Mardi Gras beads, and lots of yellow face paint. The kids got into it too, which was hilarious and lots of fun. At the end, all the staff came together and did a dance that we made up in probably abouttt...5 minutes. The kids thought it was funny so it was worth it. There´s a video of it floating around out on the internet somewhere, but I still haven´t seen it.

At the end, all the kids that competed were given prizes, regardless of who won points for their programs. Big kids got lots of school supplies and tennis balls, medianos got backpacks and school supplies, and the little kids got beanie babies and small toys. Every kids that competed also got a soccer jersey. All of the prizes that we gave out were donations from groups that have come down.

Each program also had to sing their program song. There´s a video of us at program practicing it with about 108 kids the week before the Olimpiadas.

It was definitely a lot of work to put all of the Olimpiadas together, and lots of collaboration, but definitely worth it :) I think we had just as much fun as the kids did.