Southport Central School students arrived at school Oct. 30 to discover it was not going to be just another Tuesday. Principal Lisa Clarke had something else in mind. It came as a great surprise when the students heard on the loud speaker, they were having the first-ever Pumpkin Catapult Olympics! 

Clarke explained she had been working on a lesson plan for her second and third graders that would involve games in the yard, “something different.”  Clark then thought Shawn Gallagher's fourth, fifth and sixth graders might like to compete with her students. That is when she realized it needed to be a school-wide event and Nikki Tibbetts was included with her K-first graders.

The students set to work with glee to create what each hoped would be the most efficient catapult, carefully crafted with an assortment of materials from Popsicle sticks to duct tape and many elastics. A plastic spoon would serve as the bucket to launch a candy pumpkin. They were excited to rise to the occasion. 

Once each catapult was built, each student had a chance to proudly display what they had created and explain how it would work. A lot of thought had gone into this. 

After a snack for fortification, the students regrouped into four teams.  Each team had composed a chant to recite before symbolically passing the crepe paper torch on to the next team, prior to the start of the games.  The teams rotated between “Score a Bucket,” “Hoop Shot,” “Tower Topple” and “Hit the Target” so they had a chance to try their catapults on all four.

As the Pumpkin Olympics came to a close, the tired but happy faces spelled success and all of the students were declared winners to have participated. The Pumpkin Olympics at SCS each fall is here to stay!