Tech-Taters

On our recent overnight trip to Black Rock Forest, one of the activities the kids could choose from was photography. I was the teacher doing the photography activity, and what I decided to have the kids focus on (haha) was looking at the forest and seeing what caught their attention, and then trying to photograph it with a different perspective in mind. “Be prepared to put your body on the line,” I told them. I also suggested they think of themselves as an insect – what perspective of the forest might that insect have? I wanted them to consider the forest from different angles and try to capture the unusual. After each group spent some time wandering in the forest, they uploaded their photographs to the laptops and wrote out some words that their photos made them think of. I then had them choose their favorite 8-10 photos to create a video with using the Animoto site. It is easy to use, and looks great. Below you will see the video created by Clara, a student in my class.

We just came back from our over night trip at Black Rock Forest. Black Rock is a forest with wild life and lots of diverse and interesting plants. The bus ride was about 2 hours but time flies when you are having fun. Finally we got to the place were we would be staying, it was a lodge with two wings a Boy’s Wing and a Girl’s Wing. In each wing there were bunk beds and closets. Every one was with al least 5 people in one bunk room. The bunk rooms were named after trees like Cedar, Pine or Oak. in the middle was a common area were every one ate and after activities or hikes we gathered there. We were not allowed to wear our outdoor shoes in there. Then we went on a hike- there were 4 hikes to choose from. One of the hikes was ‘slow’ and there you looked around at the beautiful surroundings and really did not hike. Then there was ’Moderate’ which was a slow and easy hike. There was ‘Challenge’ which is a bit faster on a hard hill. Finally there is ‘Super Challenge’. In Super Challenge you basically ran and hiked 2 mountains. I did the Super Challenge and some of the people (like me) got lost at times but we followed the trail and eventually were with the group again. When everyone was on their hikes they had lunch. After the tiresome hike everyone changed and went to an activity. The activities were science, geo caching, water color, photography, trail clearing and the acorn activity. When we finally finished our activity we ate dinner. After we ate dinner we went on a 2 mile night hike. It was really scary because it was a windy night so the clouds were moving fast and it looked like the moon was moving. But finally we got to a camp fire. We had s’mores and sang songs and finally we walked home. We all slept and had breakfast in the morning. We had one activity then lunch. Then another activity and it was time to go home. Nobody wanted to leave but we had to. Everyone sadly said goodbye to Black Rock and we went back to our home sweet homes.

Toasting marshmallows for s'mores

Next week we the 5th grade will be sleeping-over at a forest. The forest is called Black Rock Forest. It is upstate and we get to go hiking and do other activities. We will be going to sleep in a lodge. The lodge is split into 3 parts. The middle is like the lobby and I think that is where we eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. We are only going to stay for 2 days. We will be doing art, a science activity, photography and maybe tech. Some of us will go on the easy hike, the moderate hike, the hard hike and…. the SUPER CHALLENGE! I don’t know who would pick that because that means they would be hiking all day!

-Kiani