Winter Festival at Aaron School
Amanda Stephan, Speech-Language Pathologist at 30th Street
Aaron High School’s Winter Festival is an annual school-wide event made up of five different winter-themed activities that the students rotate through over the course of the school day. This year, there was a Northern Lights Art Activity, Snowball Battle, Winter Game Room, Marshmallow Snowmen Creation Station, and Holiday Candy Construction Challenge.
For the Northern Lights Art Activity, students worked diligently to design beautiful Northern Lights landscapes out of construction paper and pastels. They cut out a variety of animal shapes, glued them onto black construction paper, and then blended the pastels together to create waves of color across the sky. Each student’s design was as unique as the Northern Lights themselves!
During the Snowball Battle, the gym was transformed into a battleground where students played a Castle Ball game using faux snowballs. To start the game, students were split into two teams and tasked with building their own “castles” out of hula hoops. Once they were built, students were provided with faux snowballs, which they threw across the gym in an attempt to knock down the other team’s castle while simultaneously guarding their own.
In the Winter Game Room, students played a variety of fun winter-themed games. There were web-based learning games, card games, and board games available for teams of students to play. The winners of each game were thrilled to receive a small prize!
At the Marshmallow Snowmen Creation Station, students used marshmallows, pretzel sticks, candy canes, graham crackers, and edible markers to build skiing snowmen. They were provided with a list of necessary materials and a few model snowmen but, ultimately, they embraced their creativity and assembled their own unique snowmen.
Finally, during the Holiday Candy Construction Challenge, students worked together to build a variety of structures using gumdrops and toothpicks. Students practiced social skills and problem-solving, as well as exercised fine motor skills while completing all of the fun engineering challenges.
Overall, the students and faculty members truly enjoyed participating in each of the Winter Festival activities and embraced the holiday cheer!
