Hunting for Treasure

Today I finally got around to trying geocaching. I've been hearing about other people in my PLN who have tried this out, and I thought it sounded like a bit of fun.

So what is geocaching? Geocaching is a treasure hunt with a GPS. You are given the location for a hidden cache and some clues to get you started. You head off with your GPS (or in my case, my iPhone) and start searching. The cache may vary, but generally consists of some form of logbook and may have small items you can trade.

To get started, you sign up for an account at www.geocaching.com. I also bought the Groundspeak Geocaching App for my iPhone ($12.99 but very helpful on my hunt). Groundspeak took my location and found some hidden geocache points close by. I followed the arrows, and then as I got closer, had to rely on my eyes and brain a lot more.

I took along my hubby, his mother and our dog. It was an adventure for all of us, and we were very glad to have found the two caches we set out to find.

If you haven't tried it out already, I recommend it as a fun way to spend some time.

Year 4 Camp 2009

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we took students on the Year 4 Camp. The camp was located about 30 minutes drive from the city, and it was nice to get out and explore nature. Students had the opportunity to explore a range of activities they don't usually get the opportunity to try including archery, orienteering, frisbee golf and initiatives (team problem solving challenges).

We went for a bushwalk on the first day, and after a steep climb, we enjoyed the view from the top (photo by RE). We had a short skit night, with students creating their own skits and performing in front of their peers. I was impressed by the courage students showed when performing their songs acapella. Later that night we had a campfire where we sang songs and toasted marshmallows.

On the second day we learnt about the wool industry and visited a wool shed to see a sheep being shorn. Students then got to pat a lamb that is about 6 - 8 months old. They got a sheep ear tag and some wool as souvenirs.

The kids had lots of free time in between meals and activities and as always, there were dramas of 'trashed rooms' and imaginative tales of murders that took place during the night! A couple of boys worked out how to create face paint with rocks and painted their faces on the last day. (Parents weren't so impressed!)

I took along the flipcam and a camera, and a couple of students brought along their digital cameras with video capacity as well. We passed the flipcam around for students to interview one another throughout the camp and on the trip back on the bus. The trip was well-recorded on film and now students can play around with the images to create photostories or movies with the recordings.

I experimented with updates to parents using our My Classes page, but I found the video files had to be quite small and they took a long time to upload. On the positive side, we set up a collaborative journal for parents to leave a message for their child, and when a new message came in, I showed it to the student on my iPhone and they could respond by adding a comment to the message.