Camp Omega

I forgot to mention the other day that our Jello plant cell did not set. It was still totally liquid when we took it out of the fridge, probably because we used real pineapple and the enzymes in the fruit kept it from solidifying. Still tasted good though!

Camp Omega this year was, as always, a great trip. And, as always, had it's ups and downs. We had perfect weather: no rain, mid-60s, lower 70s, sunny, just a little wind.  This is the first year I wasn't cold sleeping in the cabins! It's also the first year I've actually felt relaxed and trusted my kids enough to let them be in the cabins by themselves or in a different room without an adult watching over them. We played a ton of Ga Ga Ball and a new game called 9 square. It's like volleyball four-square but with nine squares and the squares are on seven foot poles. You can learn the rules here. It's our new favorite game and now my class wants to get one for our school. Shouldn't be too hard! You just need a bunch of poles and brackets.

Other activities we did: archery, canoeing, dissecting owl pellets. They liked that activity a lot more than they thought they would. There was the initial gross factor that they had to pick through 'owl barf' with their bare hands (no gloves!), but once they found the first bones they didn't care. Plus our leader assured us they were sterile and no one would get germs by touching the pellets. Many kids brought their bones home with them, tiny little skulls and pelvic bones and rib bones. Pretty neat!

Shelter building had a big mishap. It started out great; everyone was excited. We added a layer of intensity... Zack would be testing how water proof our structure was by dumping water over the shelter while the builders sat inside it! Yikes! It was incentive for everyone to work hard. The poor 5th grade girls unearthed a hornet nest in their search for building material in the woods and two girls and their chaperone got stung. They screamed bloody murder and refused to go back to that spot. So of the three that didn't get stung, two joined my group and the other helped with first aid. Even a day later their stings still hurt and are itchy (and feel warm). We think they disturbed the queen which brought all the other wasps out to sting.

Of the two shelters we built, one left everyone soaked (the boy shelter), and one (my group) only let in dribbles.  But ours wouldn't have been good at keeping anyone warm, it was too open.

Fire building was also a challenge. It was a lot harder to get the fire going and keep it going than any of the groups anticipated. One group (the 5th grade girls) gave up after their fire died down the first time. The other groups kept going, collecting more sticks and adding them. Each group got the string to break via fire burning, although the 5th grade girl group had help and even then they bent the string down so it was closer to the fire. By late morning, everyone needed a break from each other and it was time to go home. Although I still had students ask if we could stay another night or even a week! Yikes! Too much for Miss H to handle.

VIP day is Monday at nine, so once we got back to school we helped clean out the gym and put up tables/decorations. If anyone wants to come we have classroom tours at 8:30, donuts in the gym at 9, and entertainment at 9:15. This year's entertainment has something to do with wild animals...