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CVMS Open House Carnival

05 May 2019

So my school has an annual open house to show all the Grade 5s who will be moving on to middle school. There is a carnival in the open house and our job was to create a game and run it and collect as many tickets (sold at the entrance) as possible. Now time travelling back to 2018, CVMS had another carnival called "Eco-Carnival" where we were to build carnival games out of recyclable materials. It was fun. I pretended to be a player and made the game look popular.

Back to 2019. So each class had few students working together to create a game. Our group had me, M.C., V.L., N.A., E.R., J.T.. Since M.C. and V.L. couldn't participate in the carnival because they had other events to attend, A.K. and A.L. were to replace them. They also helped prepare for the carnival V.L. decided that we should go with a balloon pop game. E.R. brought in darts and R. (from another class) brought balloons. On the day of the carnival, which was May 2nd, right after school, we went to room 107 to get our stuff, including the balloon board, balloons, darts, etc. We went to the gym and started to set up our station. We blew the balloons up and attached them to the balloon board. We also decorated. We were done after about 50 minutes. Mrs.G told us that we were very organized. (Which I agree with!) M.C. and V.L. then had to leave because M.C. had to attend TDSB All-City Ensemble concert play music, and V.L. had to go to classes. It was now 4:10 PM and we had 50 minutes before the concert. Mrs.G told us that we could sit at the bench beside the cafeteria door to talk about stuff that we as students don't want teachers to listen to. She told us that if she was our age, she would jump at the opportunity. We did go outside. E.R., N.A., and A.K. sat at one bench and A.L. and me sat in another. We talked about music including meme music, and shortly after I brought out the Chromebook I borrowed from my class and started to develop a program to keep track of players and how much they won. Then it was 5 PM and it was time for us to start the games. At first most of us just bought baked good and ate them, but Mrs.G came over and told us to start the our carnival game. So we did. However after the first three customers, all of our five darts were broken. We were doomed.

Luckily I came up with a game fairly quickly. The new game was about juggling the balloons. Players were to go into a fenced area (fenced area with benches) and if the player paid one ticket they would have to keep the balloons in the air for 30 seconds. Every 10 seconds we would throw in a balloon. If the player paid two tickets. They would only have to juggle the balloons for 20 seconds. with two balloons maximum. Suprisingly, this game did much better than the previous one, with people lining up to play. Now, one of the reasons I believe lead to this success it because people got curious when they saw flying balloons in the gym and decided to check it out. Even before we change our games, we decided to throw balloons in the air to attract more people. After a while A.L. asked N.A. about the BBQ. We both ordered some food. N.A. told us that they are only serving food until they run out, so we ran out to get some food. N.A. said that she could manage the game on her own when I asked her. We came back and for the rest of the carnival, things went smoothly. Almost at the end, we started giving out our balloons for free. This attracted people, but not new players. However, we had to get rid of balloons, so it worked.

After the carnival ended, we cleaned up. We put the posters away. The plastic thingys that stuck the posters on the wall that was used over 20 years now. Everything, and then it was over.

The carnival was fun, just like the CVMS Eco Carnival back in 2018. It will be one of the memorable experiences here at CVMS. One that I will cherish. Mrs.M once said that only the extra-curricular activities you do at school will be remembered when you look back at your school life later on. It's true. When I look back on my life. Activities done with your loved ones stand out and gets recalled.

While writing this I just recalled an event in when I was in grade 7. Our grade 7 and 6 teachers have finished reading the book called wonder. We went to see the movie on the day of the release. We were very excited. We laughed at certain parts. It was great. I just bought this book called, "365 Days of Wonder". If you haven't read the book, read it. It's great.

For now, good bye.