Team work can be fun at Eisenhower Intermediate School

The students at the Eisenhower Intermediate School assembled on the fields and courts outside the school building during a beautiful Friday, September 9, day in Bridgewater.

They came together to have fun and play games but they were all quite aware of what they were there to accomplish on just their third day of school.

To come together as one team.

That was the mission of the Eisenhower Intermediate School’s Team Building Field Day.

“Our goal as a two-year school is to have the kids participate in games and activities so they get to know each other,” Eisenhower Principal Joe Diskin explained. “We have kids coming here to Eisenhower from four primary schools plus a few others from a fifth (Hamilton Primary School). This event enables our students to get to know about each other through cooperation, collaboration, team building, problem solving and communication.”

Principal Diskin then added that the fun day this early in the school year would help deliver the results that the students and staff were focused on to achieve.

“This is participation for us to become a team.”

The entire Grade 6 class participated in the activities during the morning and then the Grade 5 students  gained control of the fields and courts during the afternoon.

The school’s physical education staff members who coordinated this fun day reported how thrilled the students were to engage in the activities.

“The kids were excited. When they came off the bus this morning they were all talking about Happy Friday Fun Day, as they called it,’ said Nicole Fitzpatrick, one of the school’s phys ed teachers who supervised the event.

The games featured various running events and contests and hitting a large inflatable watermelon ball into the air.

One less strenuous, but a very crucial form of team bonding, was writing positive messages with chalk on the walkway behind the school.

The kids wrote messages such as; “Be Kind,” “Say Hello,” and “Love,’ while they drew happy and smiling faces.

“This is all about community building,” said Fitzpatrick.

The people who were absorbing all of the fun and games knew what their goals were.

“This is so we can learn to properly coordinate with our classmates,’ said Alex, a sixth grader. “This is for us to build bonds.” 

Well said by a typical Eisenhower team player.