It won’t be
long before Early Childhood students will participate in the annual Early
Childhood Kentucky Derby in their physical education classes. On Thursday, May 3, and Friday, May 4, students
will come to the south gym to ride stick horses around our makeshift track
while classmates cheer from the grandstand with their homemade binoculars and
fun hats. They’ll listen to “My Old
Kentucky Home,” drink lemonade mint juleps, listen for the trumpet call, and clap for the winning jockey in
the winner’s circle as he/she receives red roses.
Classes have already picked an actual horse that will, most likely, participate in the race at Churchill
Downs. If their horse wins the “Run for
the Roses,” I will bring roses to their classroom. This creates more interest among the
students for the actual Kentucky Derby, which will be run on Saturday, May 5. (The race can be seen on Channel 3 around 5:40 pm.)
There has
long been a tradition at the Kentucky Derby of hats worn by both men and
women. We are hoping to keep this
tradition alive by asking students to bring a hat for our Derby. This makes the
event so fun. The hat can be plain,
fancy, silly, or decorated. Over the
years, we’ve had some pretty extraordinary hats that have helped set the tone
for our special event. It also makes for a wonderful class photo as students sit in our grandstand. I hope students
will choose to participate this year.
Hats can be brought to school the first week in May.
