Seven students in brightly-colored t-shirts run across the Lower School lawn, holding plastic cups full of water high above their heads. They pour their cups into quickly-filling buckets on the ground, then pass the cup to the next student in line. It’s Field Day at Sidwell Friends, and a lot of the students are now very wet.
 
The weather on May 21 cooperated beautifully as Lower School students ran, jumped and potato-sack-raced their way through the day—with stops for lunch and a quick visit with the new star fox mascot, played today by Lower School Principal Adele Paynter.
 
Ask the students how they’re enjoying the day and the barrage of answers comes so fast it’s impossible to tell who’s saying what; the only thing that’s clear is how much fun everyone is having.
 
“I think field day is, like, crazy cool,” says one student. “It’s just great.”
 
“It’s my first field day and everything is really fun,” says another.
 
“I’m so wet that my name tag is soaked!” declares a kindergartner whose name tag is, in fact, soaked.
 
Even though the students seemed to be vying against one another, the overall sense of Field Day was one of cooperation, not of competition.
 
“It’s good to work as a team,” says one fourth grader. “Even though it can be hard and you fall down a lot.”
 
Falling down, getting wet, and an outdoor lunch—not a bad way to spend a Tuesday.