This year 6th grade went for their Outdoor Education Experience to Snake River Adventure Center in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Snake River Adventure Center was a really cool place. They had a ton of different activities for us to do that ranged from climbing a 15,000 mm rock wall (50 Ft) and a 30ft high ropes course. There was a-lot of fun things to do. Here is my journal from May 2nd- May 4th, 6th grade Outdoor Ed Experience!
Monday, May 2nd 2011
Dear Outdoor-Ed Journal,
Today we arrived at Snake River adventure center in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We arrived at the camp around 10:30 AM and unpacked the bus. We took three buses from Marie Murphy to camp. After we unpacked the bus the camp staff had us a walk up a huge hill to our cabins to put our luggage in. There were three girl cabins Triplet 1 (The best cabin), Triplet 2, and triplet 3.
After we put our luggage in the cabins we walked even further to a big field a little bit farther up the hill. When we finally got to the field the staff had us sit down and get a partner. When we got our partner’s we got numbered off from 1 to 31. Then we played brawl ball. After we played brawl ball we played Hunter, Bear, Princess. Hunter, Bear, Princess is a different form of rock paper scissors. Our final game that we played was “Everybody’s it tag”.
When we finished playing everybody’s it we went down to lunch. The Mess hall was at then bottom of the hill. So we walked all the way back down the hill (Yippee). Before we went into the Mess hall we had to wait to go into the hall. When we finally went into the Mess hall we got to choose our seats. My table was Ms. Snyder, Payton, Me, Alyssa, Liz, Bella and Maayan. The lunch we had that that day was Grilled Cheese and the dessert was a cookie that was really good.
After we finished lunch we went back up to the big field (noticing a pattern?) When we got up there we were separated in to our groups. I was in Group 1 with Arif, YeJi, Paul, Me, Anna, Brandon, Lauren, Alan, George, Louis, James and Michelle. When we got into our groups we started playing games. The first game we played was group juggle. Group juggle is where you have a stuff animal in our case we had a cat. What you would do is you throw it to a person across the other side of the circle. The challenge was to remember whom you passed to and pass it to them again. The next game we played was were you went under the jump rope. The challenge of that game was to be able to go under the rope with more people at once. Both of the games we played you needed to communicate to one another.
When we finished playing those games we went into the forest. When we went into the forest we came along a spider web. The spider web had holes in different areas. The point of the web was to be able to get everybody through the web. But here is the trick you had to be connected at all times and not bumping the rope. Well after a trillion attempts (And fails) we finally got through the spider web. To get through we went under the web. The activity was to teach us to talk to each other and communicate. All in all that was a very fun activity! What we learned in this activity was that if you did not talk to your group you will not be able to get through a task.
Our next team building activity was a very hard task. The task was to get from a tree stump about 10ft-20ft away from a platform that is on the other side. To do this activity we had to imagine that we all were penguins. We were to think that we were on an ice-burg and we needed to get to a more stable ice-burg before we sank and got eaten by seals. It was a fun activity because if you were to get on the ground you would loose a limb (arm, leg etc.) The trick of this activity was that there was a tire swing in the middle of the platforms and stumps and you had to bring it to you with out going to get it. After we got about 7 people over we got in a bit of a slump. We were having issues with putting everyone over on the other side. In the end of it all we did not complete the task do to some small (well kind of) incidents. One thin that we did learn was you really need to talk as a group to understand how to do something difficult.
Our final team building activity was whale watch. Whale watch is were you have a platform and you try to balance everyone on the platform while trying to balance it. The difficult part of the task was you could not speak and only one person could move at a time, also had to be able to balance the plank in the time it takes to sing one chorus of “row, row, row your boat”. Our first idea was to have the lightest people go first. That idea was very useful because it helped us no what area needed more weight. After using that idea at least 4x we had a different plan. We thought if we could get someone to use hand-signals to direct you were to go you would be able to balance the board faster. We used that plan at least 7x. One of the biggest issues we had was being quite. We usually had to restart due to some talking (or laughing on some occasions). We finally did get the plank to balance after a while. One thing we learned in this activity was you cannot always talk (sadly).
After a while we went to dinner in the dining hall. For dinner we had Italian food. We had spaghetti with meatballs and breadsticks. After we ate we headed to the JAC and had 5 relays. The relays were very funny. The first relay was you had a rubber chicken and you had to run to the chair on the other side of the gym and place it on the chair. The point system for the races was 1st place- 5 points, 2nd place- 3 points and 3rd place-1 point. The seconded relay was a fun one. You had to walk to the end of the gym and back holding a paper plate with a eyeball on it. The third race was the knee knocker. The knee knocker was were you had a rubber spot and you had to waddle or hop to the end of the gym and back. The fourth was my personal favorite! It was were you had to crab walk to the green line in the gym. When you are there you had to say “Help me!” x3. Then you had to run to the hula-hoop and have it o over you and then put it back down. Finally you had to run to the chair at the end of the gym and jump rope x3. Are final race was okay. This race you had to run to the other end of the gym and then you had to run back and get the next person etc. The relays were really fun and different. We ended up getting 4th of 5 teams (4th meant 1st place but no one knew that!)
After we had our awesome relays we had two choices. Our first choice was two go on a bight hike. Our seconded choice was to go back to our cabins and have dorm time. I choose dorm time. After 1hr and 30mins of dorm time we finally finished our first day of outdoor-ed.
Tuesday May 3rd, 2011
Dear outdoor-ed journal,
Today we began our first full day at outdoor-ed. This morning we woke up and went down to breakfast where we had bacon, eggs and cereal. After breakfast we went and started our first class for the day.
Our first class today was survival, which was my favorite of them all. We started survival talking about the basics like the rules of three, you can go three weeks with out food, three days with out water but only three hours with out shelter (I did not know that). After talking about the basics we were told to name five things if our plane was about to crash down. Most people choose the basics (water, food, matches and etc.) Then we started talking about shelter. After talking about shelter we were given a assignment. Our assignment was to build shelter for our group in twenty minutes before the storm came. There were three groups. My group choose a tree with a long log laying on the fork in the tree. We then choose to put planks of wood around the log for roofing. After twenty minutes we were finally finished. One thing we learned in this class was that if you are ever lost in the forest or on a deserted island you should try to build shelter as soon as possible.
Our next class was new games. New games is were we got to learn games we don’t get to do in school. Our first game was were you get a Frisbee and you get a Frisbee and you have to defend the Frisbee 3 times or you have to offend the Frisbee 5 times. The last game we played was called ultimate Nerf. Ultimate Nerf is where you have a small ball and you have to throw it to someone on your team with out it falling before you get to the line at the end of the field. The difficult part of the game was that people would do would do long passes when they should do short passes. All in all the new games that we played today were really fun.
After new games we walked down the field to we got to the archery Range. When we got to the Range there was a man who was there. The first few things we learned was that archery had good metaphors for life. After we talked about that for a few minutes we finally got to start shooting. There were three groups 1,2,3 the groups were narrowed down by birthdays. When we started shooting I kept getting all the way up on the hay. After awhile I began some control on the bow. Then after about 30 minutes we began using balloons as targets. I shot the balloon once!
After Archery we went to lunch and had pizza. After lunch we went to our next class, which was nature. In nature we had to use our five senses to figure out what we were doing. The first activity we did was using are sense of feeling. We were handed different objects (more like rocks and two pine-cones) and then we had to figure out which was our object. After doing the feeling activity we did was using other ways to open candy without are thumbs. This was very difficult because we had no other way of opening the candy (Unless you include are other fingers which don’t do much!) After struggling with the candy for a few minutes we started another activity. This activity we had use four of are senses (except taste). First we had to find a tree while blindfolded. Then when we were un-blindfolded we had to find the tree again. After we did the tree activity we went on a trail to find the clues. The clues were hidden on a trail and you had to get to the last clue. After a few minutes we finally found all the clues and found the treasure!
in nature!!
A little farther down the trail we got to our fifth class. Are fifth class was entomology study of bugs (Yuck!!!!) In entomology we learned about the types of bugs and spiders. During entomology we also talked about the differences between spiders (yuk!!!) and bugs (once again yuk!) After talking about the bug we finally got to the fun part of the class candy bugs. We were given gumdrops, a piece of twizzler, a couple of toothpicks and a few orange wings. After that we were finished with entomology.
Are final class of the day was Orienteering. Orienteering is were we were told how to use a compass. After about a half hour learning to use a compass we finally got to one of the most exciting parts. We were given a trail of were to begin. Then you were to go into the forest and find a letter on a tree and then you had to a certain amount of paces in a certain direction. After going through the trail we finally finished and I learned how to tell the differences between bugs and other insects.
After we had journal time, dinner and some other time we went to the JAC. At the JAC we had about a 1hr 30mins of free time. In the free time I played card games with Alyssa, Payton, Jessica and Liz.
in the JAC!
I also played a little bit of pool. After that we finally went to the fire pit. At the fire pit we had smores. After a long hard day of learning we finally finished!
Wednesday, May 3rd 2011
Dear outdoor-ed Journal,
Today is our final day here at Snake River adventure center. When we woke up this morning we woke up and went to breakfast. After we ate breakfast we went to the high ropes course. The high ropes course was really tall. There were four different sections on the high ropes course. The first one was a ladder one and you had too walk across the steps. The next one was a plank and you just had to walk across the plank. Another section was a line and you walk across it. Finally the last one was were you walk across a set of tires. The high ropes course was really fun (even though I didn’t go on it). The other activity we did was rock climbing. Rock climbing was fun because you had two choices. The first choice you had was challenge rope course. The other choice was just a rock-climbing wall. Both choices ended with a zip-line. After a few hours of rock-climbing and zip-lines we finally finished and went back to the dinning hall. After lunch we went to the busses and headed home from outdoor-ed 2011!
Our last day
