The Middle School’s Half-Day Fun Day saw kids teaching their favorite pastimes to one another. 

Last week, the Middle School was bursting with energy as students belted out karaoke tunes, competed in a 3x3 basketball tournament, plunked out melodies on the piano, and squeaked their way through some truly odd balloon animals—mostly all while cheering each other on in every corner of the building. 

It was all part of the first Half-Day Fun Day, an assemblage of events led mostly by students. There were dozens of 45-minute courses on activities as wide-ranging as baking cookies, playing mahjong, crafting tiny books, battling at table tennis, drawing 3D objects, guessing mystery candy flavors, creating animal sculptures from recycled materials, and knitting with yarn, among others. The event easily rivaled any college activities fair.

There was a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure vibe about the day as students, who had previously expressed preferences about the sessions they wanted to attend, received their schedules and made their way to various courses—some of which they may have hoped for and some that were surprises. Each student, from 5th grade through 8th grade, mixed and mingled as they attended their three sessions.

In the Journalism 101 class, the now-5th grade co-founders of the Lower School newspaper, Tomas Aicardi ’32 and Ben Stern ’32, taught kids from every Middle School grade the basics of the craft, including how to interview people, gather details, and prepare to write a good story. They included tips about unbiased, fact-based reporting and the benefits of open-ended questions.

“Ben and I like journalism,” said Aicardi, “and we wanted to do a workshop together.”

“Also,” added Stern, who has written for Time for Kids, “we wanted to educate our peers about it.” With that, Stern turned to the class to ask if anyone needed help.

Around the room, students were writing critical reviews about television shows and books like Percy Jackson, Dr. Who, Outer Banks, The Martian Chronicles, and Gilmore Girls and contemplating who’d they would most like to interview. This crew leaned into history, with dream interviews featuring figures like Napoleon and Churchill. While the students’ reasons for coming to the session varied, for Josie Scanlan ’30, it was a clear choice: “I like to read the newspaper a lot,” she said. “So, I wanted to learn more.”

In the Robotics Drive Challenge session, Dylan Phillips ’29 and Theo Scoblic ’29, members of the Up Robotics team “FoxBots” out of Bethesda, walked in carrying a bespoke metallic robot complete with fuzzy fox ears. After explaining the basics of robotics competitions, Phillips and Scoblic asked the students around the room to find a partner.

With one person operating a remote robotic arm holding a Sharpie and another controlling forward momentum and direction, the teams had to drive around the room marking index cards taped to the floor with their unique Sharpie colors. The color with the most marks won. It was a remarkable lesson in cooperation and communication as kids swerved to and fro, lowering the mechanical arm in an effort to hit the target. The rest of the room hovered over the field of play shouting their own advice—“Forward, no back!” “Down, touch down now, no now!”—like proper armchair quarterbacks.

Meanwhile, outside the Middle School near the ga-ga ball pit, screams of delight echoed across campus as kids learned to play jump-rope games with Eliza Bright, a Middle School art and drama teacher. There was a timeless quality at work as old-school recess fixtures like double-dutch and jump-the-river were explained to a generation better known for their proclivity at video games than playground games. “I thought it would be a fun activity because one could do it individually, but it also can be a team activity,” said Bright, who grew up jump-roping herself.

Across all the sessions of the day, one commonality stood out: the quality and scope of the lesson-planning by the kids (one expects such traits from the professionals!). PowerPoint presentations, classroom activities, time for questions—the students had thought of everything.