Despite the snow and cold weather, the Junior High students stayed busy and warm with our end-of nine-weeks tournament on Friday, January 17. Students kicked off the day with a homeroom challenge to help practice for our January/February Recognizing Raiders theme of learning and growing from mistakes. Each homeroom was given a letter or shape to create on the Gym floor. Our high school mentors worked together to guess the letter or shape the Junior High students created. In round one, homerooms with the fastest times were rewarded points. Mrs. Reck's and Mr. O'Malley's homerooms came out on top after round one.
Each homeroom selected a second, more challenging, shape for round two and used their experience to learn and grow for round two. Mrs. Morgans' and Mrs. Lynch's homerooms had the quickest time for our high school mentors to correctly guess their shapes and earned a point each for their first place wins!
After two exciting rounds of our growth activity, we kicked off our dodgeball tournaments. Homerooms worked together to make their way through the bracket. We took an intermission for an exciting round of limbo! Each homeroom sent up two of their most limber members to compete. After continuing to lower the bar, it was down to two students from Mrs. Reck's homeroom and two from Mrs. DeLuca's homeroom. In the end, Amelia Baldwin gracefully completed a limbo under the lowest bar, earning two points for Mrs. Reck's homeroom. Tristan Groenvynck (Reck), Fox Roberts (DeLuca), and Luca Rezak (DeLuca) earned one point each for being in the final round!
As dodgeball continued, a group of students moved to the hall of fame to work on a creative art competition led by senior high mentors Cara Johnson and Aliyah Lookabaugh. Junior High students used recycled materials and craft supplies that were graciously donated (thank you!) by Junior High families to create true works of art! The senior high mentors selected winners who received treats and RVTV stickers. We were so excited to integrate this element to our Junior High Tournaments and are extremely grateful to our Senior High mentors for their support of their younger counterparts.
After multiple rounds of dodgeball, Mrs. Morgans homeroom proved again that they could hang with the 8th grade teams and landed in 3rd place, earning five points for their homeroom. Mrs. Lynch's homeroom came in 2nd place, earning seven points. Mrs. Reck's team had a massive day with activity points for their quick shape making and teamwork, 3 limbo points, and a first-place win in the tournament, which earned them ten additional points.
We also ran a senior high mentor game of dodgeball, where 7th grade students rooted for one team and 8th grade rooted for the other with points on the line! The team supported by the 8th graders won the match up and earned all 8th grade homerooms one point each! Homerooms ran through another partial bracket of dodgeball games and overall had a great morning celebrating the end of the nine weeks and the halfway point in our 2024-2025 school year. We look forward to a busy push into Spring!