We've made the third period of the grade three and four winter camp into a sort of gym class. Whether or not this is really beneficial is up for debate, but the kids like it and so does my co-teacher, so I'm the odd one out here. Whatever. We've done a lot of jump rope this week and today my co-teacher decided to have the kids try jumping side by side with three boys on one rope and three girls on another. The ropes quickly proved to be too short for this endeavour, so the kids set about problem-solving. The girls pooled their three jump ropes, determined which one could be lengthened, fixed it to the appropriate length and were soon happily jumping away. Well, almost. They could only get through a maximum of three jumps before someone messed up, but they sure tried.

Meanwhile, the boys took their three jump ropes and tied them together at the handles to create one long super-rope. They proudly boasted that they were smarter. Of course, the first time they tried to jump, their rope fell apart because it was way too long. They removed one of the three ropes and tried again. This time it was the right length, but the part where the handles were tied together was too heavy and they only managed to fling it up high enough to hit the middle boy in the head.

Ultimately, the boys never got a functioning long rope and the girls never got past three successive jumps, but seeing them try to work it out was fun.