The students of Belmont’s DPT Class of 2010 recently put on a Sports Day for kids with special needs at the Wilson County Fairgrounds in Lebanon, TN. Empower Me Day Camp, which is a summer camp for kids with special needs that is held at the fairgrounds during the summer, also hosts activities throughout the year including Sports Day, Christmas Camp, and Spring Break Camp.
About twenty kids total attended the camp and enjoyed various activities ranging from kickball to mummy wrapping both students and kids alike in toilet paper. The kids also participated in bowling games, monster musical walk (a Halloween spinoff of musical chairs), a “witch witch ghost” version of duck duck goose, and playing parachute games with a full size parachute. The kids also got to dress up in costumes of different hats, tiaras, sunglasses, and beads and walk through a curtain of streamers where bubbles were being blown around them as they then participated in a bean bag toss into pumpkin and ghost cutouts. They also had the chance to get a little messy by having to find “eyeballs” (or grapes) in bowls of marshmallows, flour, rice, and spaghetti. Finally the kids participated in an arts and crafts activity in which they designed and decorated their own paper plate masks with feathers, cotton balls, construction paper, markers, crayons, and stickers.
At the end of the day each of the kids received a special award certificate for an activity that they did exceptionally well at. All in all, both the Belmont students and kids alike really enjoyed this special Halloween themed Sports Day and made memories that will last for a long time.