Video: Socks Fly at McDole Elementary

Visitors to ’s gymnasium last Friday could be forgiven for thinking they’d wandered into the Twilight Zone.

It was certainly a sight to behold—about 100 fourth-graders, pelting their teachers with balled-up socks in a delirious free-for-all. It’s called SockFest, and Friday’s was the sixth-annual pitched battle between teachers and students, firing socks at one another with gleeful abandon.

And this year, the parents got into the act. For the final round of SockFest, moms and dads of fourth-grade students took their places on one end of the gym, and hurled socks at their kids, who laughed with delight, picked up those socks and threw them back.

But it’s not all fun and games. As fourth-grade teacher Jenny Wold explained, students donated new pairs of white athletic socks for the event, and those socks will be delivered to Hesed House, Aurora’s homeless shelter. It’s a way to give the students a fun time before Christmas break, and also teach them about giving back, Wold said.

SockFest was organized by McDole’s four fourth-grade teachers: Wold, Anne Olsen, Kindra Schumacher and Shanna Piccony. Between them, they teach about 100 students, and those kids donated about 800 pairs of socks this year, Wold said. And the students are learning more about being part of a giving community.

“I think the students really understood that we’re doing something to help somebody else,” she said. “Instead of ‘me, me, me’ and ‘presents for me,’ it was giving to somebody else for this time of year.”

Want to see what it looks like when 800 pairs of socks get chucked into the air? Click on the video above.