Kangaroo Pouches, Our First Relay Batons

We thought it would be fun to invite another class to join us for a Kangaroo Hop Relay Race during one of our afternoon running sessions. It would be a great way to share and to get to know our neighbors at school, so we invited Mrs. Bosco's class and they quickly said, "Yes."

We had to get ready. We brought Beanie Baby and stuffed animals to school, to put in our kangaroo pouches (paper bags with handles). We hoped that we'd get enough kangaroos to make a few teams and we did. The makeshift kangaroo pouches were going to take the place of relay batons. And it would be so much fun to run with these.

Next, we worked hard on our school work so that we would have a little time to color and glitter gold medals for our friends. We made 20; just enough for our visitors. We didn't make any for ourselves this time. We knew that our class would be getting 'real' gold medals at the end of the school year.

Finally, it was time for our Kangaroo Hop. We adapted the Kangaroo Hop activity from the Copycat Magazine to make it just right for our running classroom. Here's what we did.

First, we all walked out to the field and got in a big circle. Mrs. Bosco led the group in the Kookaburra Song, while Mrs. Goodrow placed cones to make lanes, and to show us the turn around point.

Then we were placed into 6 teams. This was a participation relay race, not a competitive race. Every visitor would receive a medal. There was no special prize for a winning team.

We stood in line. The first kid in each line got to hold the kangaroo pouch. On hearing, "Ready, Set, Run," the kids holding the pouches got to run, as fast as they could, to the turn around point and then had to hop or jump back to their team, like a kangaroo.

It's Kanga and Boy Off at Dizzying Speed

Finally allowed to sprint!

Besides being fun, a relay race is a time when kids enjoy a sprint. The kids can go out as fast as they can and not worry about pacing.

After we all cheered, every child in Mrs. Goodrow's class gave a gold medal to a child in Mrs. Bosco's class. We waved good-bye to our friends and then ran a Beanie Baby 200m lap. All the Beanie Babies got to run!! This time the Beanie Babies didn't have to be Australian animals. They could come from the other continents. We had North American cats, South American snakes, European dogs, African tigers, Asian pandas, AND penguins from Antarctica.

We walked back into our classroom to have our drinks and snacks. Then it was journal writing time.

We brainstormed for lots of words to use in our journals and our teacher wrote them on our chart to help us with our spelling. Then we got back to work.

From Connor's journal, "I was a kangaroo today in our relay race. I had to take good care of my Joey."

From most of the kids' journals, "I had fun. I love running."

Drawing by Bintou and Victoria