Still More Pine Cove

Just about time for supper. Just one more Instructional Period, and for our group it is Forest. Sounds kinda plain, Forest. Actually it was quite interesting. We learned about the layers of the forest, how they are different, and types of animals and plants may inhabit each layer.

One of the activities had the kids using all of their senses (except sight) to learn about the forest and their surroundings. Specifically, the campers paired off in groups. One partner closed their eyes and kept them shut. The other partner spun the 'eyes closed partner' in circles and then took them to a tree. The "spinee" then hugged the tree and otherwise tried to become familiar with "their" tree. Then the "spinner" took their partner away from the tree and then spun them around again. After the spinning, they opened their eyes and tried to locate their tree.One happy camper found her tree and struggled to contain her enthusiasm.

After Forest we had supper. And this time I think they broke the bank; Chicken Parmigiana, pasta and sauce, salad, bread sticks, and cake.

It is after supper and more free time. The camp counselors had games prepared for the campers to play in the gym after supper. The first game was a variation on Rock, Paper, Scissors. This one was called "Tarzan, Jane, Gorilla" or something close to that. It took a while to get 40+ 5th graders on the same page with that game. It took considerably less time to get everyone on the same page with "War Ball".

Our strategy with "War Ball" was the same as the night before. Tire the campers out as much as possible.

It worked!

Lights out was 11:00 PM. The cabin was quiet by 11:15 PM.

Tomorrow, Airborne and the trip home.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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The Pine Cove Saga Continues

After the Critter Habitat we headed to the camp store and then to lunch. Lunch today was hamburgers/cheeseburgers served family style. Family style means they put all the fixin's out and you have to prepare your burger the way you like it.

Works for me!

After lunch it was back on the dusty trail for us. It seems like every time we had an activity it was in the complete opposite direction from which we came. This time we had to hike from the dining hall to near the horse stables where we were earlier. We stopped briefly for the counselor to begin Instructional Period #6 for our group, which was Nature's Niche. It was about...well, certain animals niche in nature.

After the introduction we,.....yes. Hiked some more. Up the trail to a location where the counselor set up a small telescope. The kids started looking through the scope. What were they looking at? Were we going to learn about voyeurism? I guess so, sort of!

Oh!!! That's what it was all about. An eagle's nest. It turns out that there is a nesting pair of American Bald Eagle's near the camp property. The nest is in the top of a pine tree about 200 hundred yards from the location of the telescope. The nest is approximately 7 feet wide and is said to weigh close to one ton.

After Nature's Niche, yes....more hiking. This time to the lake for canoeing and Instructional Period #7.

After the safety speech and canoeing technique lecture it was time to saddle up.

No, wait! We saddled up earlier.

It was time to paddle up.

No, that should be load up and paddle; the canoes, not the kids.

At one point while on the lake a canoe tipped over. I'm still not quite sure how it tipped over other than the kids involved probably wanted it to tip over. It was warm and the kids were wanting to get wet and go swimming. While the counselor and Ms. Steele were on their way to "rescue" the "unlucky" pair, another crew took the dunk. While the "rescue" was mounted, I worked on getting the others ashore. When one of the girls canoe came in I noticed that it had a lot of water in the bottom. The girl said their canoe got stuck under the water spout during the excitement and started to fill. It just so happens I had caught a shot of this at the time. I enlarged it and put it above.

Now the explanation for the water spout. It turns out that the lake is man-made, as all lakes in Texas are with the exception of one (Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in Texas). The camp dug the lake last year and it filled in one week during the rainy season; then it started to gradually recede. It was then decided to drill down to the aquifer to provide water for the lake. the water spout is the water from the aquifer that fills the lake and the canoe in this case.

Instructional Period #8 and it is time for Aquatics. Not the Olympics sort. This is more of the life that you find in and near the waters edge. This gave our already soaked campers another opportunity to slosh in the mud. After the lesson we were armed with nets and attacked the water. Look out lake life. Here we come.

After our foray into the mick and mire our haul consisted of 3 frogs, 3-4 spiders, 6 fish(the baby variety), some mayfly nymphs, and it seems like a couple of other creatures that have since slipped my mind. After the collection procedure we sat and created a graph of our results; which is good for visualizing your information as well as preparing for the TAKS Science test.

After Aquatics today, Forest tomorrow.

PS-After completing this post I ran spell check. Spell check says that "canoeing" is not a word.

What in the world am I supposed to write?

Paddling a canoe??

Should I have written, "After Nature's Niche, yes....more hiking. This time to the lake for paddling a canoe and Instructional Period #7.' or "After the safety speech and paddling a canoe technique lecture it was time to saddle up."?

Somehow it just doesn't sound quite right.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Time For More Pine Cove

In today's post Day 1 at Pine Cove slowly fades into the sunset (after Fireside and more basketball at the gym of course) and re-emerges as Day 2.

After the evening meal all groups met and hiked up the trail to the "Fireside" and we told stories and sang songs and clapped a lot and did a short play and sang some more and I took some blurry pictures because I forgot to change the settings on the camera and casually walked around snapping to my heart's content. You can see a few of the results of this carefree evening above.

After "Fireside" we headed to the gym in hopes that we could get the kids really tired before retiring to the cabins for lights out. I'm not quite sure that it worked though. It was shortly after midnight and I was still working on getting my guys quiet. However, as always happens the guys eventually wound down and went to beddy-bye land.

GOOD, I mean REALLY GOOD! I was tired. I was GOOD and tired and I needed my beauty sleep.

Day 2 dawns anew and all is right and wonderful with the world. The guys get up and get ready for the new day and we all head to the dining hall for breakfast. We arrive and shortly find that breakfast will be French Toast, sausage, oatmeal, and the obligatory side items for the French Toast and oatmeal. I had hoped for more because the day was destined to be long and tiring. But then I remembered that kindly old Quaker gent advising us all, "Nothing is better for Thee than me!"

First stop for us, the horses and Instructional Period #4 ....after a short hike to another camp of course.

The camp wranglers were very good. They introduced all the safety equipment to the kids and and explained it to them. After getting the kids into the riding helmets, one of the wranglers began to explain how to handle and direct the horses. As you can see above, the kids were in rapt attention to the presentation....except when the horse began to make deposits of recycled grass. (No, I didn't take a picture of that; after all this is a family blog.)

The kids are getting ready to hit the trail.

After a long day on the hot and dusty trail it feels good to get back to the barn. OK, so it wasn't a long day on the trail; it was only about 30 minutes on the trail. And it wasn't really hot and dusty. It was quite comfortable under the pine trees. But, it was still good to see the kids arrive back at the barn.

What's this? One of the girls has one 'ornery critter. It doesn't want to go the proper stall. That horse has a mind of it's own and it is up to this newly trained "horse trainer" to coax it into the stall. She was successful after several attempts. The girl told me later that her arms were sore because of this one 'ornery critter.

And speaking of critters, that was our next Instructional Period. The students made their way to the habitat room where the counselor took a few moments to talk about some of the animals within the habitat room and, of course, her expectations of the kids while in the room.

The big star in the room was the sloth; and not just any sloth but a two-toed sloth. That's the sloth on the rope in the left picture.

While I was scurrying around the room snapping pictures I was focusing on two tortoises on the floor. After a few moments I looked up and turned around and was face to face with the sloth. I jumped and gasped. The kids giggled. I moved away. the kids giggled some more and pointed at Mr. Horst.

The Ball Python in the picture on the right had not quite learned about the Law of Gravity. During our time in the room we would occasionally hear a "THUMP!!!" It was the python making it's way up the side and trying to move along the top edge of the display window. And then, THUMP... old man Gravity reached up and pulled the python down. Thank you Sir Isaac Newton for keep this critter under control.

There were also tortoises, a tarantula, parakeets, snakes, snapping turtles, gold fish and other critters in the room that I can't remember at this point in time. Ask me some time next week when I'm not thinking about it and I might recall them.

Yesterday at school one of the kids from the trip was outside my classroom looking at my pictures on the bulletin board. She was looking at the picture of the sloth. She couldn't remember it's name.

I couldn't either.

While she was looking at other pictures she suddenly remember the name and shouted it out.

"Yeah, that's it," said I excitedly.

But now I've forgotten the name again.

I'm going to have to go to school on Monday and ask the girl the name so I can bring some fame to this poor old sloth of the two-toed variety, as opposed to the three-toed variety.

Tomorrow, Nature's Niche and Canoes. Maybe more, but not less!

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Pine Cove Trip: Installment #3

Day 1 continues.

Our group makes their way to Instructional Period #3, the last period for the day. For us it was Orienteering, or better known in my world as "Learning The Parts of the Compass and Then How To Use It To Find Your Way In The Forest ".

And It just so happens that this is exactly what our group did.

The 1st picture above shows the group getting the lowdown on compasses and how to read them. Sort of like being let in on the inside secrets that only a Boy Scout or the Special Forces might know. The group is getting their directions on how they will navigate through the forest and then how "pass" their test in the 2nd picture.

And yes, they all passed. I know this because they all made it to supper that evening.

Proof positive that your intrepid blogger was in fact a part of this enjoyable trip.

After the forest navigation and other Instructional Periods all of the kids made it back to the gym for some hard earned down time. Many played basketball, soccer, or just hung out until supper.

Supper, by the way, was pizza. Pizza from CiCi's. Pizza To Go from CiCi's, not the buffet. The buffet would have been nice. Can you imaging 40+ 5th graders at a pizza buffet at one time?

What's this?

Leap frog??

Could it be that today's youth have forsaken the more modern forms of entertainment for a throwback to yesteryear?

Nah!!! It was all staged. Ms. Steele and I thought the picture would be good. This was all part of the "Camp Games" period. In this activity the cabin groups went on a sort of scavenger hunt where they had to look for things and do different activities for varying points.

Fun was had by one and all.

Stay tuned for more adventures from your intrepid blogger and his cast of 5th graders soon.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Pine Cove Trip; Installment #2

I thought that our day would get an early start on our trip to Tyler, but the buses were a little late and we didn't leave until after 8:30 AM. Fortunately we had the charter buses from transportation and not the "yellow dog" buses. You know the ones; the regular school buses that you see daily on the routes. Can you imagine being on one of those things for nearly 3 hours???

The trip was great on our bus. (We took two buses.) The riders on the other bus had a less than stellar experience. Apparently enough breakfast was not brought or it was misplaced, or something cosmic happened to it. By the time we had traveled about 35 miles their bus stopped at a convenience store to get some muffins or honey buns for the kids on their bus. As if that was not enough, the DVD player on the bus didn't work.

NO CARTOONS!!

That stinks!!

The first picture (above)was taken on our bus as we were traveling to Pine Cove.

After arriving at Pine Cove we unloaded and took our things to our cabins. Afterwards, we all gathered at the dining hall and waited for lunch. Lunch was good. We had sandwiches, chips, and the other obligatory fixins'. After lunch, the kids went to the gym for their orientation and the teachers/chaperons stayed in the dining hall for our orientation.

My assigned group's 1st Instructional Period was Team Building. Here they learned how to work with others in a group to solve a problem or complete a task. It was really interesting to see the natural leaders in the group come forward.The first picture above shows the group receiving their instructions. The next picture shows the group working together to find out how fast the can pass the black ball through 12 pairs of hands in the least amount of time.

Believe it or not they got it down to approximately 1 second.

A tiny frog. A really tiny frog! Pretty self explanatory isn't it?

Ahhh! The Zip Lines, our 2nd Instructional Period of the 1st day. What better way for a 5th grader to overcome fears and build up confidence than to hook up to a wire and take a step off into space? The kids were excited to get here and take the plunge; but first we had the mandatory safety lessons and other instructions.

Once the instructions were over the first set of boys trekked up the stairs and hooked up. Then, hesitated and paused and finally took that leap and sailed down the line none the worse for wear.

While the boys were working on top of the tower I took some of the girls to the pier to pick up their equipment. While there I saw a step and explained to them that if they did not look down before they jumped then they wouldn't be as afraid. Also, when it was time to jump they should simply step off just like they were stepping off the pier where were standing. Some of the girls came to me later and said they did this and that it was easier for them.

Way to go Barry!

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Pine Cove Trip; Installment #1

So a few months ago my principal stopped me and asked me if I would do a favor for her.

I said, "Sure, I think. What is it?"

She went on to explain that the 5th grade classes were going on a field trip to Pine Cove Camp for Science.

I thought that sounded cool.

The principal said it was overnight...as in three days and two nights overnight.

OK.

She assured me I didn't have to go if I didn't want to go; BUT, if I didn't go they may not be able to find another male chaperon and that would mean the trip is off and the 5th grades would lose out on a excellent learning opportunity.

OK, thanks for the taking the pressure off.

Any way, I told her that I would go and I actually began to look forward to the trip.

THEN I was told the trip was off; not enough male chaperons.

Rats!!!! I had really begun to look forward to going.

THEN two weeks ago I was told that they had found a male chaperon for the trip and it was on again; and it was a little over a week away.

Goody! Time to arrange for a substitute and prepare things for her and my class to do. Once again, on the field trip we would go to the Pine Cove Institute of Wilderness Studies in Tyler, TX. The trip was planned to give our students hands-on experiences with nature and the environment and was geared to their grade level Science TAKS test (Which is tomorrow by the way).

The big day finally came on Wednesday, April 22. I had made all my arrangements, packed enough clothes for a week, and psyched myself up for the events of the next three days. I was ready for this. I was assigned 7 boys in my cabin and was assigned to a group of 12 students (6 boys and 6 girls)for our instructional periods. Fortunately, one of the 5th grade homeroom teachers was also assigned to my group. (In reality, I suppose that I was actually assigned to her group and not the other way around.) The Teacher, Ms. Steele, is a great teacher to work with and does a great job with her kids. You can tell by the way the kids respond to her. As it turns out, earlier this year I was assigned to Ms. Steele's class for after school tutoring. Because I was with her kids most of this school year I grew to be fairly close to them and this trip made that bond even stronger.

A few pictures of the trip begin tomorrow.

© 2009 Barry T Horst


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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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Picture Monday, September 8, 2008

I know this is not my normal Picture Monday post. This is the kind of post that happens when you're trying to get into the swing of things again and there are some really fun things going on in the news.

Recently the Waco ISD school board voted to close G.L.Wiley Middle School due to receiving an Unacceptable Rating from the Texas Education Administration (TEA) for 5 years in a row.

State To Waco ISD

School Board Meets

Board Votes to Close

Restraining Order

Board Votes Again

Judge Closes Wiley

It seems that the moment the school board voted to close the school a group brought suit against the district. If not at that moment, it was pretty close. Long story short, the district had to delay the closing for a week and then the court gave the green light to go ahead with the closure. Now to the Picture Monday part.

Below is a picture of the school that I took last spring in front of G.L. Wiley. Maybe it was a good thing the school was closed.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.



Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.