If you were lucky enough to be in the Pritzker & Pucker Families Gymnasium (Blue Gym) on April 16 at 11:15 a.m., you would have beheld the stately procession of the Olympic teams from the JK classrooms. They marched with pride, holding aloft flags from various countries around the world. The teams were made up of students from both classes, all prepared to do their assigned homeland proud!

Spearheaded by the JK 104 team, this project involved bringing both classes together to celebrate healthy competition and to further their connections to the wider world. For 104, that meant building off their earlier work with their Immigration Exploration project, which used a large map and pins to help them see how far their families had come to be here.

In the weeks leading up to the games, we explored sports from around the world. People have always played games, and they remain one of the best ways to bring together and connect a group at any age. We tried our hands at French guessing games and Haitian chase games, games of all shapes and sizes, but the crown jewel was learning Ver Ver Aras Lama from Papua New Guinea. The name translates roughly to ‘Taking Coconuts’ or, as the class ended up calling it, Coconuts. It’s a wonderfully frenetic game of stealing, scoring, and quick turnarounds. Anyone in class would be happy to teach you.

On the day of the Olympics, we invited the parents of 104 and some Nursery friends to watch as the eight different teams competed in relay races, paper airplane regattas, and long jumps over lengths of rope. The finale: a massive game of Coconuts where thirty-three kids all played in a game that could have gone on forever, if it weren’t almost lunchtime.

The event was a fantastic celebration of community, giving the kids a stronger sense of their place in the school and in the world and giving them memories of play that (take it from us) can last a lifetime.