We woke up to nice weather this morning here at Camp Taiwan. After breakfast, we continued with our regular rotation activities.
The color teams had the following activities:
Green Team: Ecology, river tracing, and cooperative games
Orange Team: River tracing, ecology, and archery
Blue Team: Archery, sports, and crafts
A few of these activities warrant a bit of explanation. For ecology this week, we are looking at the mouth parts of various insects and aquatic creatures. We try to keep the classroom lesson a brief as possible, and then let the campers out to catch bugs and shrimp so they can see for themselves.
Cooperative games are games that are designed to challenge the campers to work together and communicate to complete a task. Each team's counselors pick the games that are appropriate for the age and developmental stage of their campers. One example is a tic tac toe race. The grid is laid out about 10 meters in front of the teams. Members then take turns racing to the grid to put a beanbag in their desired square. If no one wins with the three beanbags, they can race back and move a beanbag to a new square. It takes a combination of speed and skill at tic tac toe.
The craft for the week is "shrinky-dinks." Campers take a sheet of plastic similar to a sheet of laminating film, and rough it up with sandpaper. This allows it to be drawn on with a permanent marker. The sheet is then baked in an oven, causing it to shrink down to about 1/6 of its original size and makes a hard plastic tablet.
Our fourth activity period was supposed to be tent time in which each individual tent group can choose what to do. However, due to a brief threat of thunder and lightning, we moved everyone indoors and played a series of relay games with the whole group.
The campers have showered and are having dinner at the moment. After dinner, we will play an outdoor night game called bigfoot. This involves campers getting a playing card with which they can challenge the counselor who is designated bigfoot. If they have the higher card(s) they win the game. But there is a twist. They have to figure out a special strategy if they are going to beat the counselors.
That is all for today. Here is a link to today's photos.