I got back from another Girl Scout camping trip with my Junior troop, although many girls who were younger came along to fill room. Initially, I was disappointed that many of the Juniors couldn't come due to family/friends commitments, out of town, sports, etc. Just did not seem to be a good weekend time wise. Despite this, we decided to forge ahead and go camping anyways.
We had chosen a camp called Amahami, outside of Binghamton, NY and is a rather large camp. It has a beautiful lake, our site had a pavilion for eating that overlooked the lake.
Friday night was decent outside and the first half of Saturday was beautiful outside, then Mother Nature decided to unleash rain on us. Some thunder, lots of torrential downpour rains, this lasted for a few hours. Didn't seem to end until we decided to go to bed around 9 or 10 pm. Crazy! But what did we learn? To make best of what you are dealt with. We managed to get some kind of dinner, they managed to entertain themselves (to a certain point) while raining but it was a big downer. It was nice when we woke up Sunday, but again a thunderstorm swept through and downpour of rain during part of our travel back.
We had the experience of having a site director (voluntary) check us in, stop in our unit a few times during our stay, make sure that our unit was ok before we left which was unusual compared to other GS camps. They also had a very knowledgeable Assistant ranger (again, voluntary) who gave us lots of pointers, let us borrow some cast iron griddles and even gave us some packets of wildflowers. He let us in the cabin that was built in 1936 right next to the fire tower that we climbed up and down (100 ft) tall, several times. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corp 211 in 1935, the cabin was built in 1936. The fire tower was de-commissioned in 1998 and eventually the state sold it to the Amahami camp where many, many people visit this piece of history. It was manned up until 1988. Its purpose was to look out for forest and brush fires, since the tower had a 55 mile view all the way around. Very fascinating.
So what did my girls and I learn? Make sure we are prepared! I missed many things like enough paper towels, cooking spray, stuff like that. Also bring tons of craft supplies so you don't hear "I'm bored!" at all---ever! But we also did learn how to survive during non-stop rain---songs, games, board games, things like that. We also learned you didn't have to have 20 girls to have a good time. The 9 we had all did great together with ages, ranging from 1st grade to 4th grade.
I also learned that the girls want to try canoeing which is something we can work on next year. Never too late to learn.
Now all my gadgets are charging and my "batteries" are charged. And its back to work tomorrow.
All my love,
~Carleen
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
An unfogettable teachable moment at Girl Scouts
This week, I had combined my troops' meetings to Wednesday night only this week. I had other family obligations going on on my regular Tuesday meetings for my Daisies and Brownies.
We have 2 garden plots at the Katy Leary Community Garden on the south side of Elmira, which just started last year. So for the first time this year, our troops went over to our gardens on our meeting night and time. First order of business---weeding! Our garden beds were full of weeds so the girls went to town with pulling weeds. They grabbed trowels and loosened up the soil in the beds before planting seeds. Next thing I know, I hear an "Ewww....what is that?!" Thinking it was another plant that the girls had never encountered, I continued pulling weeds. Again, I heard a "Carleen! Carleen! Come here!" and another "Ewwww, its moving!" What we later encountered was that there were some baby moles that had made a home during our absence of the tending to the garden. At first, some of the girls first instinct was to kill it, but after talking to the girls, we left the baby mole alone. In fact, they actually watched the baby for a few minutes. It was fascinating to the girls to come across this miracle of nature. This lead to a discussion of how animals make nests for their babies, that moles are actually mammals, meaning their babies are like human babies and not hatched from an egg like birds. It also lead to a discussion of what to do if you find a baby animal, or any animal in general in the wild and even what being "in the wild" is. We discussed that this is their home so that's why they chose our garden bed to make a home. We also decided to leave a large section of that garden bed unplanted in case the moles leave the bed.
Those kind of experiences are truly teachable moments, meaning you may have not planned to talk about wild animals, but it opened up their eyes--literally--to something they may never see again. And they learned this just from being in Girl Scouts!
Lovin' the Girl Scout life!
~Carleen
We have 2 garden plots at the Katy Leary Community Garden on the south side of Elmira, which just started last year. So for the first time this year, our troops went over to our gardens on our meeting night and time. First order of business---weeding! Our garden beds were full of weeds so the girls went to town with pulling weeds. They grabbed trowels and loosened up the soil in the beds before planting seeds. Next thing I know, I hear an "Ewww....what is that?!" Thinking it was another plant that the girls had never encountered, I continued pulling weeds. Again, I heard a "Carleen! Carleen! Come here!" and another "Ewwww, its moving!" What we later encountered was that there were some baby moles that had made a home during our absence of the tending to the garden. At first, some of the girls first instinct was to kill it, but after talking to the girls, we left the baby mole alone. In fact, they actually watched the baby for a few minutes. It was fascinating to the girls to come across this miracle of nature. This lead to a discussion of how animals make nests for their babies, that moles are actually mammals, meaning their babies are like human babies and not hatched from an egg like birds. It also lead to a discussion of what to do if you find a baby animal, or any animal in general in the wild and even what being "in the wild" is. We discussed that this is their home so that's why they chose our garden bed to make a home. We also decided to leave a large section of that garden bed unplanted in case the moles leave the bed.
Those kind of experiences are truly teachable moments, meaning you may have not planned to talk about wild animals, but it opened up their eyes--literally--to something they may never see again. And they learned this just from being in Girl Scouts!
Lovin' the Girl Scout life!
~Carleen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
