Boys vs. Girls
By: Maurice
I discovered the world of supersoakers about a year ago. I collected about 15 soakers. Since I'm a sportsteacher I decided to let my students enjoy these unknown classic old fashioned waterguns as well. The students spend most of their time behind a pc so running for your life with a huge supersoaker in your hands is a more fun and active lifestyle.
The students are about 13-14 years old. They all love sports and this was the last lesson of the year and the weather was ok, about 22 degrees Celsius. The outdoor sportsfacility is on a athleticstrack. The fillingstation was the steeplechase waterbasin. The goal of the war was to collect pilons from the other team, each had 5 of them, and bring them to your base. First I wanted to make teams but the girls wanted to fight the boys and they happily accepted.
Now the funpart: choosing a supersoaker. I had already filled all soakers and put them in a shoppingcart. First I told the students that for the last 30 mins of this final sportsclass of the year I had a surprise for them. Then I walked into the storage department and displayed the shoppingcart. It's great fun to see the faces of the kids when they see all these great soakers, because I prefer (and collected) mainly the BIG soakers. After the first excitement had passed I explained the rules, how the guns work and of course the safety issues.First a girl was allowed to choose a soaker. Options were: MX, MXL, CPS 1700, 4100, 2000, shotblast, hydrocannon, XP 310, XXP 275, XP 270 and some more, 14 in total. I armed myself with a CPS 3000 in case anyone would be brave (or stupid) enough to engage me. I was also the referee and you need some authority, isn't it? The girls mainly choose the smaller guns and the MXL. The boys choose all the really good stuff like the 1700, 2000 and the 4100. The battle started. They were able to use half the athleticstrack since one more group of students had sportsclass this our. They could use both the track and the field in the center. It was great fun to see that some boys and especially the girl with the fully filled MXL could hardly walk, let alone run with their soaker. At first they all waisted lots of water by shooting as much as possible with barely decent prepumped blasters. After some time the boys got the upper hand by using the 1700 and 4100 in a good way. Later the girls discovered that the XXP 275 was a great gun if you let the big soakers shoot first. The shotblast and hydrocannon were popular as well because they work very easily. Soon the fillingstation became a popular place to be and many students fired at one another if they had a chance. They all enjoyed themselves for about 20 minutes.
The next day I was the most popular teacher they had ever known. Maybe I can surpise them next year with some new guns like the 3200.
Posted: 20110810
