AUGUSTA, Maine — For the past month, winter had been far from dreary at Sylvio J. Gilbert Elementary School in Augusta.
Kids cheered as they played kickball with Paul Doody, their school resource officer.
Minutes later, younger students lined up for a call-and-response game with their teacher. She told a winding story that prompted kids to interact while she read: Students hopped when she said a noun and crouched when she came to a verb.
It was not a standard recess. Instead, it marked the final 24 hours of the 2024 WinterKids program.
Fourth-grade teacher Gretchen Nickerson is somewhat of a WinterKids ambassador at the school. A few years back, when she switched schools to work in her hometown district, she made sure to bring the program with her.
"Being a teacher is the whole child, right?" she posed. "It's not about just how I teach you academically."
Nickerson said her students were absolutely more engaged in class if they exercised beforehand.
Inside her classroom, students were spread out in small groups on the floor. Each group thought up multiplication or division problems, while one student attempted to solve them on a small whiteboard. If they got it correct, they could grab a marker and add a feature to the large snowmen each group was drawing.
The room was buzzing.
"When I can get kids to teach it to other kids, that's powerful learning," Nickerson smiled.
Gilbert Elementary was one of 66 schools taking part in this year's program. It's also one of 16 schools competing during weekly challenges for prize money. The winners were due to be announced Feb. 14. In all, the program's leadership estimated that 10,000 Maine students participated.
Elsewhere in Maine, at the Miller School in Waldoboro, students jumped rope and snowshoed. They were enjoying their first ever WinterKids at the school, which was happily welcomed by health teacher Miranda Belcher.
"What excites me is seeing the lightbulb ignite for the kids, kind of realizing that, 'I can have fun learning,'" she explained.
A trio of students went beyond health and arithmetic and taught a lesson in selflessness. While their peers trotted off on snowshoes, they merrily shoveled the length of the school's track.
All, Belcher said, so their classmates with disabilities could come out and join them in the field.
It's a lesson that would linger long after the program wrapped up at day's end.