Winter Cele-break-tion Wrap-up

Success! On Wednesday, December 28, the academy hosted three separate online parties for our students to kick out the old year and bring in the new. Teachers and advisors spent a great deal of time organizing an elementary, high school, and Wii^TM party for our students. There were many challenges to overcome; several meetings were held with students to make sure they could join our Mario Kart® races on their Wii, and games had to be practiced by our faculty prior to the high school party to ensure they could be done online through a WebEx.

The effort was definitely worth the reward. We had a total of 60 students attend the high school party, 25 attended the elementary, and 38 raced their teachers in the Wii MarioKart tournament. Right away at 8:15a.m. (when the party started), we had a total of 45 students waiting to begin online. There aren't many things that a student will willingly wake up that early for. By the end of the day, we had 120 students attend from 4 different continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, North America).

What was all the fuss about? Perhaps an example will help you understand the hype. One game that was played in the high school party was called the Online Scavenger Hunt. This game was a race against other classmates, teachers, and even the principal. A picture like this would pop-up on the screen:

Students then had to work quickly to find that exact picture on Google images and copy the URL into the chat box before anyone else to receive the point for that picture. Most winners were decided by less than a second between responses. It was intense! We also played other games such as Pictionary®, Jeopardy, Mad Gab®, Blurt!®, Name That Tune, and Fact or Fiction. The elementary party had activities such as Pictionary, Mad Libs, Christmas story times, and ice breakers.