Students at Swans Creek Elementary School participating in the SOL carnival

Let the games begin! Fun and learning for all at the Swans Creek Elementary School SOL Carnival

The cafeteria at Swans Creek Elementary School was filled with carnival games to help students review for the Standards of Learning (SOL), resources for parents, and refreshments on SOL Carnival Night. Preparing for SOL testing can be stressful, especially for students, but that stress was eased as students reviewed SOL content while having fun and playing games. To make it even better, many of the carnival games were created by Swans Creek Elementary students themselves.

A group of Swans Creek teachers came together to develop a plan to help students review for SOL testing in different and exciting ways. It was very important to them for students to be involved, so they gave students the opportunity to show their creativity and help their peers at the same time by creating games. The students were also invited to run their booth at the event.

 “The students were very creative! They planned, designed, and executed. Out of the 30 booths we had that night, half of them were created and run by our third, fourth, and fifth grade students. The night was a great success, and we look forward to building on it for next year,” shared Victoria Waite, Title I math teacher.

Andrew, a fourth-grade student at Swans Creek, was one of the students who created a game for the carnival. He shared, “The SOL carnival was a good learning experience. It was a creative opportunity to make something so targeted with the SOL content. We had a lot of teamwork and collaboration to work together so that we could help as many kids as possible do better on their SOL’s. I felt excited and nervous to have this chance to make a game. Excited because I knew I could help people, but nervous because of the pressure of wanting to help everyone but not knowing exactly how. In the end, it was a great event!”