ACES Takes On The Washburn Games!
ACES Takes On The Washburn Games
by Jenn Schultz
ACES Board Member Bob Klefsaas runs the baseball station with our students!
Although it was a cold, drizzly day, ACES had a blast at this year’s Washburn Games! The Washburn Games is an annual event where students get to participate in drills and mini skills clinics for a variety of sports. Hosted at Bryn Mawr Meadows, kids practice dribbling a soccer ball, passing a hockey puck, setting a volleyball, punting a football, and more. We were also excited to see one of our own board members volunteering as a pitching instructor at one of the baseball stations!
The mascots from many of our ACES partners joined in on the fun by taking photos with the kids and participating in some of the sports activities. Our students loved interacting with Goldy from Gopher Athletics this year! He kept them entertained with his playful antics and even organized an impromptu game of football with an apple from one of our student’s lunches.
Another favorite station with our youth was the arts and crafts, face painting, and temporary hair color station. Our students love any opportunity to express themselves! Their choices in face painting were as unique and diverse as our student population themselves. We had everything from mustaches to cheeseburgers and even a message for equal rights!
The Washburn Games is also a great opportunity for kids from our various sites to meet each other and participate in sports-based learning together. Although students are divided up into small groups based on their site, they engage with students from other sites at many of the sports stations scattered across the park grounds. Basketball is a favorite sport among many of our ACES faces so it didn’t take long for multiple groups to gravitate toward the basketball courts. It was great to see kids from Global Arts Plus and Jerry Gamble Boys and Girls Club not only practicing their shots together but also encouraging and cheering each other on!
Teamwork is just one of the social-emotional skills our students practiced using throughout the day. Some of the sports and activities, such as karate, are new to our students so they built up their perseverance while learning new skills. There were also a lot of opportunities for goal-setting as students worked to pitch a certain number of strikes, throw a football a certain distance, or just make it to as many sports skills stations as they could. The Washburn Games continue to be a great way for our students to be exposed to unfamiliar sports and try new activities!
