On September 1, four schools in Beijing had a different start of the new semester. In the “First Class of New Semester”, a special charity event called “Keep the Best Time, Love Together” challenging the Guinness World Records “The Longest Paper Plane Queue” was held.

“Keep the Best Time, Love Together” challenging the Guinness World Records “The Longest Paper Plane Queue” was jointly organized by the China Children and Teenagers’ Fund (CCTF) and Sister Ma Food Co., Ltd., aiming at encouraging children to stay away from mobile phone games and return to traditional interactive games of manual education. The event was started from 2017, and has been praised by parents and students.

Activity site of Exhibition Road No.1 Primary School, Xicheng Dirstrict, Beijing

The event was carried out simultaneously in four schools: the Hujialou Central Primary School in Chaoyang District, the Sanlitun Primary School in Chaoyang District, the Exhibition Road No.1 Primary School in Xicheng Dirstrict, and the Business Center Experimental School of Tsinghua University Primary School. Among them, the Hujialou Central Primary School also set “Have a Dream, Take it Off” as the theme of the event.

Hujialou Central Primary School “Have a Dream, Take it Off” - flying of paper planes

Activity site of the Business Center Experimental School of Tsinghua University Primary School

Students in all four schools, from grade one to six, were given origami materials in the school playground by teachers. After school officials read out the entries and announced the start, students started to turned paper into vivid paper planes with their small hands. Students then wrote their dreams on each paper plane and set them free. For a moment, those paper planes passed between students’ little finders, scattered all over their vision. This part was to call on students to chase dreams and take actions.

Students at the Sanlitun Primary School have folded paper planes and been waiting to fly

2018 is the second year of the “Keep the Best Time, Love Together”. For the question of why to choose the theme of challenging the Guinness World Records, the representative of CCTF said that in order to further expand the influence of the event, more children would be aware of the extensive and profound traditional hand-made puzzle interactive games, and the whole society would pay attention to the better growth of children.

Deway, the famous educator said that in early childhood, “Life is game, and game is life”. Games here indicate healthy and upward games. In this regard, traditional handmade games always play a positive role. Traditional handmade games have language and eye contact, as well as emotional interaction. In addition, the wisdom of ancestors is the key of the handmade games, such as hand-eye coordination and intelligence components. Most importantly, playing with peers and parents can make children feel extremely happy and safe. Nowadays, many mobile games that children like to play can easily harm the physical and mental health of children. Those games can not only make children emotionally indifferent and have poor ability to get alone with others, but also contain pornography, violence and all kinds of bad behaviors. Thus, it requires proper selection and guidance of parents and teachers.

The dream-filled paper planes will all line up to challenge the Guinness World Records for a gift to the National Day

It is reported that CCTF and the Sister Ma Food have collected all paper planes that fill of dreams, which will be arranged in rows before the coming National Day holiday of 2018, and tens of thousands of students’ dreams will be released to challenge the Guinness World Records and present to National Day by setting a Guinness World Record.