Fossils, and foxes, and whistles, oh my!

Thursday and Friday I chaperoned the twins' overnight field trip. The trip is a 3rd and 4th grade tradition at our school, but it was my first time going. (EM's first year, Michael went, and his second year I was within a week of my due date with LW so neither of us slept over, although Michael did go for the second day.)

We went to a state park about an hour away, right on the edge of the lake. Loading the buses and cars, driving there, unloading, and ice-breaker games took up most of the morning. After lunch, we divided into small groups. I ate lunch with IM and then went with NB's group. each group had to create a name that had some connection to our state. NB proposed our team name (Red-tail Foxes), and since IM's group was named the ___ River Ripper Raccoons, I'm pretty sure she had some input on its name. (IM is a huge raccoon fan.)

Each group had to create a pantomime based on one of the six seasons (winter, mud, spring, summer, fall, and stick). IM's group had a clever one for winter. The adults formed a ski lift and the kids were the skiers. The other outstanding pantomime was of a car (two adults) getting stuck in mud and being towed out.

After the skits, we went on a nature scavenger hunt. There were some impressive finds: a snake, a rock with numerous fossils, a button rock (formed when the lake receded and the clay hardened), and a raccoon skull. NB was very sad that he didn't get to take home his find for "a thing that wiggles" but one of the teachers took a picture of NB and the woolly bear caterpillar. The cool non-living finds were gathered up and taken to the nature center. Everything else was dumped back in the woods. (There is a strict rule against taking anything out of the park.)

At the campfire, each class sang (familiar music with new words), and one of the dads performed a completely original song he had composed about the trip. One of the moms told a traditional Abenaki tale. The teachers lead us in some camp songs. One of the teachers usually leads the songs, but the other teacher decided last year that she wanted to have some songs to share this year. So she searched You-tube, found some songs, and practiced until she knew them cold. (I would never have guessed that she had ever been uncomfortable singing in public.) The baby shark song, one of her finds, was the big hit of the trip.

After the campfire, we went on a wolf hunt. Not hunting wolves, but hunting like wolves. The kids were given the choice to opt out, but we ended up with 74 kids and adults who went on the hunt. We held hands and formed a line, then walked in complete silence down the road and into a nearby field. Once in the field, we made a circle, then dropped hands, turned our backs to the circle's center and walked 50 steps into the darkness. Then we sat and waited for the wolf leader to howl twice. At that signal, we all howled for three seconds and then walked back to find the leader (who had moved from her previous position). Then we had a group howl.

Some of the kids, IM included, were very nervous about being completely alone in the dark (even though in reality people were not far away). But they did a great job of staying silent. We talked after about our different perceptions of time. Estimates of our time alone varied from 1 minute to 15 minutes. (In reality it was 5 minutes.) Some of us saw shooting stars while we were waiting. The whole experience left me very grateful for the great community of kids and adults in which my kids are growing up.

That night, we slept in lean-tos. I was in IM's lean-to. We had four kids, two parents, and one teacher. Someone loaned me a mattress, so I was very comfortable.

In the morning, we hiked out to the nature center, once someone's summer home. We saw more fossils along the trail and in the rocks used to build the fireplace in the nature center. IM's teacher pointed out the word "conjecture" in one of the displays, and asked IM if she knew what it meant. She didn't, but when her teacher asked her to give it a try, IM said "guess."

Out at the point beyond the nature center, we saw lots of fish jumping and a family of foxes. IM was busy with plans to move there and survive, living off the land. She was full of talk of creating shelter and grinding acorns to eat, but she ruined it somewhat when she proposed getting a generator to run "a small television and a little refrigerator."

NB found some zebra mussels clinging to the rock above the water line and was very upset when we wouldn't let him save them. We explained over and over that zebra mussels are an invasive, non-native species and they are destroying native species, but he was still sad that they were going to die.

Someone figured out that an acorn cap makes a great whistle. All 43 3rd and 4th graders learned to blow acorn whistles. Note to self: next year, pack Advil.