November 11, all students and teachers at Keats had a fun and interesting activity together. At 1:00pm we gathered at Keats School’s lobby. Then we took a bus to a very beautiful park – Lianhua Chi Park. It took 2 weeks for Keats teachers to prepare such a great event, so we were all very excited. Joy, vice-president of Keats, rented a bus to take us to the park directly to avoid switching buses back and forth. The Lianhua Chi Pard standed out from 5 popular candidating places. Many students who have studied in Kunming for over 1 year only know famous places and seldom get a chance to expose themselves to infamous but very impressive places. Lianhua Chi park, located in the northwest of Kunming,  is on the top of our list.

While we were on the way to the park, a Keats teacher introduced the history of the park to everyone and rules of the games we will be playing. Students were divided into 4 teams, getting ready for the fun games. When we arrived at the park, we walked around the park to find a perfect place for games. Then we found a square surrounded by green trees and traditional buildings. It turned that it was not only a great place for outdoor activites, but also an idea space to appreciate the beauty of the autumn.

Why this even was considered to be unique and memorable? The event was composed by 8 different games. It was a good way for Keats students to relax themelves through the games, while they can practice their Chinese through the games.

The first game was a kind of relay race. Each team was asked to play Ping Pong while running. The game made everyone so excited! Then each team started the “jump over the rope” competition. We had very strict rules, and all team members needed to jump together over the rope and only one team made it. This competition was considered to be the hardest outdoor activity ever.

Jianzi – shuttlecock is one of traditional Chinese games, so we took this opportunity to introduce it to our students. However, to our surpise, several students were very talented and they can alreay play Jianzi. Then two team-cooperation games raised everyone’s spirit.  The first game was all about balloons. A balloon was put between two team members. They had to keep the balloon using their backs. Then they needed to run from one side to another side and pass the balloon to their team members without using hands.  The second game was tug-of war. There were 5 people on each team. Getting the strongest people to play for each team was the secret to won.

Before the final of the tug-of war, we played two interesting games which provided students a chance to show their Chinese language skills.

Teachers spoke out a Chinese word from the last character to the first character. The students needed to speak them out with correct order then translate. All words we chose were those that students learned before. Many students were happy that they learned a lot and they could speak them out quickly.

Next game, students chose two movies form their lists to act without speaking and others could guess. Famous movies such as Kingkong, Matrix, Lord of rings, The Jaws, Singing in the rain, Forest Gump were acted by students. Their actions were fantastic and won big rounds of applause.

The final of the tug of war became the competition between two strongest teams. All audience cheered for them. The final game was named ‘love hug’ which made the atmosphere to reach climax! A teacher spoke a random number and all students needed to hug together. The number of students who hugged together should be the number that the teacher just said. If anyone didn’t hug with correct number, he/she was out. In the end, 3 boys fought for number 2. They fought for 3 minutes and made all people laugh to tears. Hezhuo and Mangus won the final prize – cups of love!

Happy time always passed so quickly. When the last game finished, we had to leave the park. But all people were happy and the students expressed gratitude for teachers who prepared such a great and meaningful event.

On the second day, we still heard students’ talking and laughing at the fun moments during the games. They hoped there would be another chance to play again and looked forward to the next outdoor activity in 2015!