I Heart Tug-of-War

Above picture: Me and my students. Rejoicing. Yeah, my feet are off of the ground.

Each year we have Field Day at school. The events are: Hoop Relay, Sack Race, Water Brigade, 50-Yard Dash, and Tug-of-War.
So this year my class got disqualified (if you can even get disqualified from school Field Day) from the Water Brigade. Let me briefly explain the Water Brigade: Each student holds a plastic cup. The student at the end of the line is standing by a bucket full of water. This student fills their plastic cup with water and transfers water into the students cup beside them. This goes on through the whole line of students. When it reaches the opposite end of the line, the water is transferred into another bucket. Basically, you see how much water survives the cup transfer through the whole line of kids. If it sounds lame, that's because it is. Apparently my class thought it was. It was hot and we just wanted that event over with. Or, maybe that was just me. We finished the event first and we were ready to high-tail it inside to take a water break. It was hot that day. An adult helping with the event came over to me and said, "Ms. Marcum, you have been accused of cheating." Um, what was that? Is she really going to tell me that me and my 25 kindergarteners cheated at a game that doesn't even matter? That we cheated at a game where there is no prize or point for that matter? I didn't even want to get into it, so I said something about letting another class win; we didn't care. We just needed to find water...away from the Water Brigade. Besides, we needed to safe our energy and rest up for the upcoming event...
To me, Tug-of-War is the one and only event that even matters during Field Day. I am a competitive girl. I want to win. Tug-of-War is the event that I always want to win. Tug-of-War is my event. I want to bring it. I want to own it, and so far, I have made that happen thus far in my teaching career. My class had been the kindergarten tug champs for the previous two school years. Could I go a third? I honestly had my doubts about my little bunch of kids this year. I just didn't know if we could work together to get the job done. However, after some pep-talks and extensive training sessions (just kidding about that last part...sort of), we were able to pull it together. Yep, three years and running. So, congratulations to me and all of my current and former kindergarteners for being tug champions! "Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride, Nobody's gonna slow me down..."