AUBURN - There are not many times when a day of school really means a day of play, but that was the case last Friday for students from St. Joseph School.

Last Friday marked the school's sixth annual field day, a chance for students to put down their pens and pencils, drop their books and have pure fun. There were many stations around the school for relay races and games, as well as a moonwalk - and while that's all fun for Claire Rejman, 9, of Scipio Center, there is one station that she can't ever miss.

“I love the snow cones,” she said.

For Cooper Wilson, 8, Jacob Morin, 9, and Jacob McIntosh, 8, all of Auburn, that station is dodgeball.

“It's fun because you get to knock down the pins,” Morin said.

And as Patrick Moore, 8, and Parker Hogan, 9, both of Auburn, were jumping around in the moonwalk, they didn't give what they were missing a second thought.

“I'm happy because we don't have to do homework,” Hogan said. “We're just having fun all day.”

And that is the point of Field Day, Principal Kathleen Coye said.

“That's why we do it,” she said. “It's important to also have some fun.”

Physical education teacher Sam Lincoln organizes the day around this time every year to give students a chance to giggle, jump around and also relax before a very important part of the school year.

“It's a crucial day at the end of the year for students to relax before finals,” he said. “That's why we do it on Friday. It starts the weekend off right.”

Though morning rain slicked grass and ominous clouds threatened to confine students eager for some fresh air, rays of sunshine broke through gray skies by lunch time, giving a bunch of kindergartners an opportunity to play with water balloons in pastel purple, green, yellow, pink and blue.

Standing shoulder to shoulder in two straight lines in the school's basketball court, teams of children pulled water balloons out of a cardboard box and passed them down the line in hopes of filling another cardboard box at the other end first.

“Take it,” Theron Bennett said as he passed each balloon to Ailish Cuthbert.

After a few minutes the game changed, with children on one team passing balloons to their counterpart on the other team. If the teammate caught the balloon, each person would have to take a step back and try again.

Giggles and screams erupted as balloons crashed onto the blacktop, sometimes staying intact and sometimes popping, splashing water onto little legs.

Getting wet was Delaney Lovell's favorite part of the activity, but the same could not be said for Molly Rejman.

“I really liked when the water balloons popped on us,” said Lovell, 5, of Auburn. She made an effort to get sprinkled with water Friday, standing strategically under the moonwalk so she could feel a bit of the water that collected onto its roof earlier that morning.

But Rejman, 6, of Scipio Center, said she didn't quite enjoy getting wet, though she liked the water balloon toss as a whole.

“I love the bouncy house (moonwalk) and the water balloon toss,” she said. “I love the snow cones and the face painting is good, too.”

But regardless of what activities they liked the most, they enjoyed the entire day and all that it meant.

“It's like really fun when you go outside,” Lovell said. “You don't have to do work and stay inside. It's just fun.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net