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Imaginations run wild: Students attend 'Camp Cridersville' |
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 |
 Cridersville Elementary School students fish for letters to spell out their names Monday while attending “Camp Cridersville.” The event is held the week of Thanksgiving. These fishermen climbed aboard the S.S. Tester to fish for their letters. Staff photo/Krista Hayes By KRISTA HAYES
Staff Writer
It was a scene that would have made Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin cringe.With arms stretched out wide donning a 5-pound backpack, kindergarten student Gavin Hall closed his eyes and drew a deep breath before attempting to cross a narrow wooden log with poisonous frogs and snakes flooding the river below.
Hall’s imagination was not the only one running wild trying to avoid deadly reptiles Monday as Cridersville Elementary School students were invited to spend the day at “Camp Cridersville.”
“ ‘Camp Cridersville’ and other events like it are put on by the school’s Positive Experiences Committee each year with a goal of helping students to renew their spirits and keep the school’s morale high,” Cridersville Elementary School para educator Laura Hadding said. “It’s just a way for students to have a day of fun and remain positive year-round in more ways than one.
“Every month we try and hold a ‘fun day’ here at school aside from the big event before Thanksgiving break such as last year’s ‘Under the Big Top’ circus,” she said. “In the past, we have had a ‘Pirate Day’ where students and staff were encouraged to dress up as pirates and an ‘Under the Sea Day’ where the whole school was decorated with underwater life with scuba divers hanging on the walls to greet students as they walked into school.”
Held in the school’s gymnasium, campers of “Camp Cridersville” were split into animal groups and invited to take part in a campout for approximately 40 minutes with two classes at a time participating in five main events.
Among the events were “Scenic Cycling,” with each student watching an interactive video of trees passing by, peddling away on their own “peddlers” as they pretended to be biking through the mountains.
“Fun Fishing” was also a part of the outdoor adventure as students boarded a boat or stood on land or the dock wearing life jackets, hoping to catch fish with letters corresponding to the alphabet in order to spell out their names.
In addition, “Animal Yoga” was included, in which students twisted and turned their bodies in ways that would make Stretch Armstrong cry, trying to portray certain animal yoga positions.
Accompanying the exercise was “Stories and Smores,” where students were treated to stories by a campfire while enjoying warm smore Pop Tarts.
Finishing out the rotation of events was “A Walk in the Woods,” where students were asked to successfully walk across a bridge, ending up in a winding maze in search of various woodland critters.
For the past two years, Hadding said the “fun day” event has been held the Monday before Thanksgiving break to give students in different grade levels the chance to interactive with one another while bringing positive experiences into the school system.
“The younger kids always find it fun to look up to the older ones, plus it gives students the chance to see their other friends who might not be enrolled in their class with them,” Hadding said. “So far at this year’s event, we haven’t had any trouble or had to sit any student aside. Everyone has been behaving very well, and I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from many students on how much they’ve enjoyed themselves and ‘Camp Cridersville.’”
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 November 2009 )
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