About thirty more campers arrived today. Unfortunately, so did the rain. It was kind of off and on again, so it wasn't all bad, and we did our best to keep the kids warm with liberal doses of hot chocolate.
The Waves (Blue Team/grade 6) started the day with the Giant Swing. This is one of our most popular activities. If you want to see what it is like, check out this link. After the Giant Swing, they had a period of poetry. We went over some examples of personification and metaphor. Our goal was to write a poem about nature, so they got to stand outside in a quiet place for a little while. We came back and they wrote their poems.
The Sigmas of Ohio (Yellow team or 7th graders) started the day with a shelter building activity. They learned how to make a shelter to keep them dry using some rope and a tarp. They then moved on to a lesson about peer pressure. They had a couple of exercises that demonstrated good and bad peer pressure and had some group discussion.
The 4th and 5th grade students all checked in and we went over some introductory principles and rules about camp. Then they went to their first activities. Pink Team (Grade 4) went to Rock climbing and Purple team went to Archery.
After lunch, the Waves had a session in fire making. The learned about the fire triangle (fuel, air, and heat) and built their own fires in teams. Then they had a session of communication games. As the name suggests, this is a series of games the are designed to encourage students to communicate.
The Sigmas of Ohio had the Giant Swing right after lunch. When they got back from the Giant Swing, they were a bit wet, so we sent them off to have early showers before doing crafts.
The Pink and Purple teams had Ecology and Frisbee golf after lunch. The grade 4 students learned about water habitats, and the grade five played a version of bingo, where they had a list of plants and animals that they had to find.
All the campers have had their showers and are just finishing their dinner. After they write in their journals, we will have another campfire for our evening program. It will be an opening campfire for the 4th and 5th graders and a closing campfire for the 6th and 7th graders.
That is all for tonight. Here is the link to today's photos.