Going for gold

Pictou - "Left! Right! Left!"
Slowly, three Grade 7 students marched together on giant wooden cut-out feet in an odd version of a three-legged race, working together to cross the finish line.
It was actually supposed to be McCulloch School's version of cross-country skiing as the students participated in their own version of the Olympic Games, which began Friday evening in British Columbia.
"Once we got the hang of it, it was awesome," said Kyle Rudolph.
Each homeroom was assigned a different country - Rudolph was part of team Slovakia and had his face painted like the flag - and the students studied each country before their opening ceremonies on Friday.
"This is really a very cross-disciplinary activity," said phys ed teacher Shane Hampton, who helped organize the event. "Over the next two weeks they'll learn about it in social studies, art, phys ed, language arts and math."
In addition to studying the countries, the students made banners and flags for the chosen countries, the Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden and Russia.
The students participated in six different timed team events - alpine relay, luge relay, snowshoe relay, cross-country ski relay, biathlon relay and skeleton relay - which are taken in the spirit of the games and adapted to what was possible at McCulloch. For instance, the skeleton relay had students building snowmen, while in alpine relay they had to work together to walk in a line, their hands on each other's shoulders, around the school.
"It's all about creating awareness about the Olympics," Hampton said.
"And the big thing is celebrating winter and getting them outside and active. The kids came prepared, all the events were held outside and they brought their hats and mittens and boots."
Olympic Fever was an apt name for the event - it's brought interest in the games to a fevered pitch at the school.
"I think Slovakia is going to win the school Olympics - and maybe there at the real game as well," said Mike Welsh, who proudly wore a shirt decorated with Slovakia's flag.
Grade 8 student Madeline MacKinnon objected to that assessment, however. A member of team Sweden, she learned facts about the country like the fact that the band Abba originates from there, and helped make up an Abba-themed dance for her team.
"We're going to do well - but in the actual Olympics, I think Canada's going to win," MacKinnon said.
The Olympic fever will continue over the next two weeks at the school, as students participate in lunchtime intramural team challenge events, with the closing ceremonies wrapping up at the same time as the Olympics conclude.