*All photo credits go to our daughter Anna Maria, the official photographer of the day, who took over 1,300 photos on the day!!
Monday saw us enjoying our annual Home Education Athletics Carnival. Hard to believe it has been 15 years since our local group began hosting this event, in fact when we began this lad was a new babe in arms.
This year was his final year to compete and he really gave it his all.
The passion, determination and skill of 17 year old boys is impressive to say the least.
The skill of 15 year old boys is rather remarkable too. Our boys tend to give sporting events their all.
The enthusiasm, sportsmanship and encouragement from all the children competing was outstanding. This year saw our highest numbers, we had 88 children registered to compete.
We held track events; age sprints, relays and the cross country race. We are always impressed by the children undertaking such a distance; 400, 800 and 1200 meters.
Most of our children are keen long distance runners and generally place well. This year our younger children followed in the footsteps of their older siblings by securing places in the Junior Division (4-8 year olds). Jack Jack (8) came in at second place and Jem (5) came in at third place!
We also held field events; long jump, javelin, discus and shotput.
Holding a variety of events enables children an opportunity to shine, where some may not if we just held track events.
The children are placed in three teams and merit and participating points are awarded to their house colours. Each child competes for places against their age peers, children as young as 2 years through to 17 years join in the fun.
Our children joined in with enthusiasm and sometimes placed well and sometimes didn’t. A learning opportunity for all to handle the highs and lows of a competitive event.
We wouldn’t be able to run this day without the help of our parents who help run each event. In particular we couldn’t manage without our support team who put in hours of prep work prior to and at the Carnival. A huge shout out to my friend Bec and my PC who created and maintains our awesome database, saving us many hours of work and eliminating much stress.
It really was a spectacular day, one of our best but then I think that every year:)