Over Night Trip to Camp Lodestar

The school we choose for our kids is an AWESOME school. It's a public school in the school district but it's kinda like a charter school. It's very parent oriented. They take lots and lots of field trips and you have to do monthly donations and parent volunteer hours. The donation is not required and of course since it's not really a charter school they cannot discriminate or tell you your kids cannot go there if you do not donate. 

All the parent involvement makes it so great for the kids to learn. The parents are in the classroom for about an hour or so helping with different centers so the kids get so much more. We haven't started our parent volunteering for this school year yet. We will have our first parent meeting in a couple weeks and will sign up then. Not sure how it will work this year sine Cameron is in First grade but I am assuming it will be similar to kindergarten. 

Field trips are huge deal and we do not take buses so of course the parents have to volunteer to drive. And last year I went on every single field trip. This school also has overnight field trips for all grade including the kinder classes. The overnight field trip wasn't until the end of the year and you have to kinda apply to be a chaperon. I was chosen to go....whoooohooooo:) Since I have a son I had all boys in my car and our cabin was an all boy cabin. Including Cameron I had 4 boys so there was about 15 or so boys in our cabin. Everyone is always shocked when they find out the Kinders go on an overnight trip. There were a hand full of kids who did not go. 

The field trip was to Camp Lodestar. It was almost a 2 hour drive. And on a two lane windy-ish road. The teachers had warned us to have some barf bags and ginger ale because sometimes the kids can get sick. And well they were right. I had 2 barfers in my car. One of them being Cameron. They didn't barf much. Cameron made his in a bag and the other little boy did not and it was all over the front of him. The car smelt for a couple days but we got home and cleaned it up it was fine. So now I am a freak when we drive somewhere knowing Cameron can get car sick. Once we made it there the kids were fine. There were a couple other kids that barfed as well in others cars....oh joy:) so much fun!

The trip was only one night. We got there in the morning and then left the next afternoon.  The kids did lots of activities. We went on a few hikes and did activities on the hikes. There is really no down time for the kids to get bored. They were always doing something and keeping busy. 

 Dinner time!!!!

 Going on a night hike. The night hike was cool. We saw a whole family of deer and a few bats. It was cool to see the kids' reactions. 

 After the night hike the kids made smores. Of course Cameron doesn't like smores so he just ate the graham crackers. 

 This is the little pond Cameron was talking about for days before our trip. They showed a video in class of Camp Lodestar and on the video I guess they found a water snake. Well Cameron wanted nothing to do with getting in the water. He kept saying, "I am not getting in the pond, they are snakes in there", I told him he didn't have to. But once we got there and he saw all the other kids in the water he slowly took off his shoes and was knee deep in the water. He did so much more than I thought he would do. I was so proud of him. Like I have said before it's such an awesome feeling seeing your kids succeed and do things you've never seen them do before. 

Here is another proud moment. He was holding a little slimy fishy and frog. I would have never thought he would touch either. Maybe it was because all the other kids were holing them, I don't know and I don't care. He did it all by himself and that makes me so happy and proud.

This year in first grade they go on a 2 nighter. Of course I will be wanting to go on that one as well. All these field trips will get tricky when Easton starts kindergarten next year. Everyone thinks I am crazy wanting to go on all these field trips but I love going and spending the time with all the kids. It's fun. Yes its crazy but FUN. I am so grateful I can volunteer and go on all these field trips.