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Friday afternoon, Bainbridge High School students involved in Tonya Welch’s Early Childhood Education connection pathway hosted a spring fling for special needs students in Mrs. McMillan and Mrs. Wilson’s classes, complete with door prizes and snacks.

The ECE2 and ECE3 classes were tasked with creating developmentally- appropriate lessons and activities. The students submitted their activity ideas to Welch with an explanation of how the activity would work and why it works for that particular age group.

Upon approval, students would then come back to Welch and explain their differentiations, in the event a student could not reach the goal as originally designed.

Once they met all requirements,students then designed and created carnival-themed activities.

Some of the activities included matching ducks, sponge relay, beach volleyball and water balloon tosses.

“It’s all modified, though,” Welch said. “Every student in Mrs. McMillan and Mrs. Wilson’s class will participate and win prizes at every activity.”

While it was a part of their required assignment, Welch said her ECE students fell in love with the idea of the spring fling and footed the bill for prizes, signs, and objects required for the activity.

In addition, the students in the Nutrition & Food Science pathway created snacks as part of a graded assignment. All the students in Mrs. McMillan and Mrs. Wilson’s class gave the program their allergies and diet needs and the class was tasked with creating healthy snacks that catered to all the restrictions.

When Spring Fling finally arrived on Friday, Mrs. McMillan’s and Mrs. Wilson’s students ran through a banner and onto the grassy lot behind the agriculture department, where they began their fun-filled day.

The students immediately gravitated toward the dance party, where ECE student Abi Surratt had created a playlist of songs she knew they liked, through working with them. The students and teachers began to dance along to “Watch Me,” “Hotel Room Service” and “Life is a Highway” among many others.

The students then found their favorite booth the water balloon fight and enjoyed tossing the balloons at each other, along with trying to hit Welch, Mr. Sean Johnson and Mrs. Beth Dollar.

Mrs. McMillan said her class was extremely excited and hopes this event continues for years to come.

“We didn’t know exactly what we were coming into, but I think we were mostly just excited to come outside and play with other kids and be with their friends,” she said.

McMillan explained that the kids are confined to her classroom for most of the day. The ECE class comes in for first block and they have one other student visit them during her free block, but beyond going to physical education they don’t get much outside interaction.

“We equated this to the Special Olympics for them to explain it, but this is way more fun,” she said. “They don’t have to sit and wait at each station, like Special Olympics, but out here they still get cheered for and supported.”

Following a fun filled dance party and water balloon fight, all students were treated to a cheeseburger lunch, made by Mr. Greg Harrell.

“For this being the first Spring Fling, it was more than we ever could’ve asked for,” McMillan ended by saying.