This week we held the first annual AES Mini-Mudder Run. It was a day that the staff and students won't soon forget. I got the idea from listening to Any Hair talk about his Mini Mudda on the PHYSEDagogy podcast. After listening to the podcast I realized that this was the perfect year to try and pull it off in our school yard as we already had a dirt track dug for our new walking path that was waiting to have gravel put in.
I spent the winter and early spring brainstorming ideas for obstacles for the race and asking people who had been to similar adult events about what they had seen and reviewing the footage of Andy's race. I came up with a list of obstacles and asked staff and parent council for what I needed. As usual they came up with most everything I had hoped for and more besides. Some of the obstacles included mini-pools, mud crawls, car tires, net crawl, sandpit crawl, slip and slide and bale jump. We set up the obstacles in the morning and a couple of dads brought their water trucks in to wet down the whole path with extra water to make some good sticky mud where we had to crawl.
I spent the winter and early spring brainstorming ideas for obstacles for the race and asking people who had been to similar adult events about what they had seen and reviewing the footage of Andy's race. I came up with a list of obstacles and asked staff and parent council for what I needed. As usual they came up with most everything I had hoped for and more besides. Some of the obstacles included mini-pools, mud crawls, car tires, net crawl, sandpit crawl, slip and slide and bale jump. We set up the obstacles in the morning and a couple of dads brought their water trucks in to wet down the whole path with extra water to make some good sticky mud where we had to crawl.
After lunch we all came out and danced to the song "Mud" and got all the instructions before sending the K-2 students out on the course for 40 minutes. The grade 7/8 students and staff were positioned at the obstacles to help the younger kids and control the flow through the obstacles. Once they had finished they were directed to the fire truck where a local fire fighter (one of the dads) hosed the mud off of them. An added bonus was that the water sits in the truck in the station so it wasn't freezing cold. We had change rooms set up outside where the students had a change of clothes to put on. Once changed students were treated to a post race snack of bagels and watermelon. Each group stayed to cheer on the other age groups during their turn.
Kids, parents and staff had an excellent afternoon. It gave the students a chance to see staff members in a new and exciting way. It's not everyday that you can smear mud on the principal and not get in trouble! There were a few things I'd change for next time and we won't have the dirt trail next year but after all the positive comments we will have to find a way to make it work.