July 29th Day Five

Today was another day full of activities; however we stayed here at camp Huntington. We had several visitors come to talk to us about engaging kids in outdoor activities. Rob took us to the first activity of the day. Here we got to do a number of activities in small groups that I feel were very relaxing while we got to work with others an testing our trust. Next Rob took us to the low ropes course. Since this is the first time that I have ever done this I thought it was a create way to build team working skills and see how well everyone works together in the group. The group that I had been in was really great. Not at one time did we ever second guess one of the courses and we were all encouraging as one person was completing their turn. Another thing that I like about this activity was the reviewing at the end. Once we all came back as another group, Rob had us reflect on what we had learned and what we thought about the teamwork. Although we had kept a card of points for our group, I like how he didn’t go around asking each group which had what amount of points. I think that this was really good because in the classroom, most students will feel as if this were a competition to see who could get done the fastest. I liked how he told everyone they did a good job and had the groups share the strengths and weaknesses with everyone.
Another activity we did today was the high ropes course. This gave us a chance to challenge ourselves into something that we aren’t regularly used to. For those who completed the high ropes course, people were always down below encouraging one another to keep going and giving them ways that they could get themselves across the ropes. I thought this was a really good technique especially because we were so high up and they could see things from the ground that we weren’t paying attention to while up there.
Over all today I feel that it brought many people closer and it showed us that team work needs to be within the classroom in order for it to be the best learning environment. With someone helping you and always giving you encouragement to succeed, it gives you the confidence you need to almost do anything.