Normally, if someone walked into a classroom, they’d see students writing down notes and filling in worksheets. However, one day this year at Cannon Falls MS was filled with activities and school spirit. Having a day full of mostly non-academic activities is something very abnormal for most schools. The activity day was brought back from several years ago as a part of homecoming 2022, and the middle school students were able to participate in it again; they got to pick three activities to do for the last three periods of the day. The middle school teachers came up with and ran their own activities

Field House Activities

One option for students to choose from was Nitroball in the field house. Nitroball is a less challenging version of volleyball for players who want a more toned down form. The game is played by giving each team unlimited touches on their own side, and the ball could touch the ground once between each hit. Nitroball gave the students the chance to run around and be engaged in some physical activity instead of sitting for most of the day. The field house activities were run by the three P.E/health teachers, and was a great way to keep the students active.

Escape Room

There was an escape room hosted by Mrs. Davisson and Mrs. Olson, two language arts teachers. Instead of being an intense activity, there were six stations that had mostly English related activities. Each station had creative ways to incorporate reading into fun tasks. For example, one station had a paragraph that needed spelling corrections in order to figure out the clue. The theme was a zombie apocalypse taking over the school, and it was up to the students to fix it. The escape room was a wonderful way to engage the kids in literature related activity, while having fun at the same time.

Game Show Activity

There were multiple classrooms that held game show type activities for the students. Mr. Stachowski held Family Feud in his room. There could be more than two families during the game, and the teams wrote their answers on whiteboards. At the end of the hour everyone got a piece of candy, regardless of whether they won or not. Mrs. Miller held Zonk in her room, a game that not many people play. Zonk is where a team gets asked a question, and the next team has the chance to steal if the original team fails to get the question right. If a team answers correctly, they have the option of spinning the die one, two, or three times. Whatever number (or numbers) it landed on was multiplied by 100, but if the die landed on a Zonk, the score was wiped out completely. Mr. Meyers held Catchphrase in his room. There were two teams, and each member sat across from each other. One player holds the game machine and chooses a random word. They have to explain the word, without saying it, to their teammates. Once their teammates guess the word, they pass it to the next player. Whoever is holding the game machine when the timer goes off, the opposite team gets a point. Whoever has the most points at the end wins. 

Board Games

One option for the students was to play board games in Mrs. Otto’s room. Mrs. Otto had a wide assortment of games for the students to play, as well as card games. Some examples of games were Candyland, Battleship, Connect 4, and Uno. The board game activity was not too difficult for Mrs. Otto to organize, as she already had board games for normal school days. The activity was a simple yet fun way to stay entertained.

Homecoming is an eventful day every single year, and having three activities made it very unique. Olson stated “We offered a wide variety of activities. They were enjoyable, but the only downside for me was mine and Mrs. Davisson’s activity needed a little more time.” Regardless, the activities were entertaining for nearly all the students. “Students were able to choose activities that they wanted to do instead of being forced to do stuff they didn’t want to do,” said Nathan Baszuro, the student council president.

• This article is published in the Torch, a middle school publication located in the Lantern