Middle School

My Grade 4 Camp Recount

By Meera G

On the first day of term, most of the grade 4’s went on camp. It was at the Summit in Trafalgar. As I said, 70% of the Grade 4 students came with some of the teachers from school. Mrs Walker, Mrs Pearce, Ms Delaney, Mrs Della Bosca, Ms Allison, Nicole, Miriam, Sam and Mr Flanagan were the teachers and staff members that came.

Now what happened on the first day? 

As soon as we got there, squeals of excitement spread among us. We all eagerly waited to see who we were in a cabin with. I was in a bungalow with Simreen, Niva, Kyana, Kyraa, Brighton and Tahlia. After we set up, we all headed down to the barbecue shelter. Since we were spending 3 days there, we got sorted into groups. I was in group 2 with Simreen. Now that everyone was I their groups, we went to our first activity which was… Inflatable City and Human Foosball! For human foosball, we got put into 2 groups- blue and purple. I was in purple group but unfortunately lost. Then we did the Inflatable Obstacle course. We got to do it TWO TIMES!!! Afterwards, we had dinner and luckily, we didn’t have to do duty group that day. Before bedtime we all headed down to the stadium to have a… DISCO PARTY! The room was filled with singing and dancing, and everyone had a smile on their face. Plus, there was even a dance circle! The whole night was so enjoyable and fun. After that we headed to bed, but it was a long time before we went to sleep!

You may wonder what happened on the second day? Well, we had breakfast except since we were group 2 it was our turn for duty group (gross!!!). Fortunately, I didn’t have to wash the dishes. But after duty group, we got to do our activity! It was Tash’s ladder, and I was so nervous it felt like I was panicking. But luckily Zoe was our coach and let me play “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter which was super energising. I was so proud because even though I was scared I still persevered and went to the very top of Tash’s ladder! That was a breath-taking moment. Next, we headed off to the flying fox, which I was looking forward to. I got into my gear and listened to the instructions. Once it was my turn, I felt so free! I even let go of the rope! I got turned around backwards but I was ok! Once I gave my gear to someone else, I started to record people on the zipline. Everyone had their turn, and we managed to be perfectly on time. 

We went to laser skirmish and again were put into two teams- “Blue” and “Red”. It was boys versus girls! We played two games and for both of them we lost. Even if we lost, it was still a pleasant time, even if it was tiring. Since we were running around outside, we got hungry, so we walked to lunch. After our delicious wraps, we went to our cabin to get changed for the MUD MONSTER COURSE. So, we needed to head down to the BBQ shelter to get into our groups. We played some group games then the amusement began…

We were the first group to go and to begin we ran down and to begin we ran down to our first challenge- holey buckets. Basically, we had to make the buckets overflow, but the bucket had holes! We decided to work smarter not harder by letting someone jump in the bucket and covering the holes with our hands. We finished our first activity and ran over to the shed, where we had to pick to pick up 2 tyres to lift while we had to link up to each other and run from now on. We ran over to the 3rd activity which was charades. I even got to act one out! Our 4th activity was getting a towel and catching a ball that our team threw. It was a bit of a struggle, but we pushed through. Excitedly, we ran over to our next activity. There were 5 red tyres and 5 black tyres and a rope that had a plate to switch the tyres from one side to the other. Everyone worked together as a team to get it done. Afterwards, our coach began the next activity by swinging giant balls and we had to run through without getting hit. Then two students had to balance on a small log to get to the puzzle at the other end and put a piece of it on. Simreen and I were partners and after our turn, we helped people with the puzzle pieces. The next activity SHOCKED everyone. We had to crawl under a rope net that was above a pit filled to the brim with muddy water! 2 people also had to push the tyres through. And I was one of those “lucky” people. Even though we were already wet, we then had to roll around in muddy puddles! We grabbed the tyres and ran to the last activity. Basically, we had to climb up and then slide into a ball pit with dirty, gross plastic balls, and THEN climb up and out. As I said, that was the last activity, so we linked back up with each other, grabbed out tyres and ran to the finish line. We all shouted gleefully, and then all of our proud smiles rapidly disappeared and turned into frowns as we were told we had to DO IT AGAIN! I am not going to tell you what happened again, but we had to absolutely everything again, without slacking off. 

After feeling completely gross, wet, soggy and muddy, we finally got to SHOWER!!! We were the first group to finish so that meant we were the first group to get clean. As I prepared to feel the warm relief of the shower, I was shocked to realise that they were SO COLD and not once did they go warm! I had to rush through my shower but honestly, at that point I was too starving to care. I got changed and went to eat dinner. We had pasta and yummy garlic bread. Since we had already had the disco, the teachers planned for us to watch a movie. When dinner finished, we had 5 minutes to grab our blankets and pillows. We got good seats and got comfy. While Mrs Walker and Ms Delaney set up the movie, Mr Flanagan gifted us a surprise- a camp song! It was called the Joe song and Sam absolutely hated it. The movie that was played was Migration. I loved the movie, but I got super tired during it- which I think was the teacher’s plans. But afterwards, I was fine so the girls in my cabin and I stayed up to have a midnight feast before we went to bed.

On the third day, we all had to be on time because we had to pack! I was stressing but luckily, I managed to get everything to fit. Simreen and I packed up and then dropped our luggage off at the bus shelter. We had some delicious pancakes and then off we went to our last and final activity. I was not looking forward to this activity because it was rock climbing. I did the easiest level but still didn’t make it to the top. As I said, I DON’T like rock climbing, and I am not particularly good at it. But I gave it a go anyway! Once we finished, it was time to go back to the BBQ area to announce each groups values winner. They were Tahlia (4E), Asher (4D), Eva (4C), Phoenix (4D) and Holly (4A). These lucky students got to go in a World War 2 tank and drive over a car! I interviewed Tahlia and she said, “It was exciting and amazing, and it was a memorable time”. After the tank, we all went onto the bus and headed back home.

When we FINALLY got back to school, we lugged all of the bags and suitcases to the Grade 6 building to wait for family members to pick us up. I was so happy, excited and relieved to see my mum and go signed out ASAP. The very first thing I did was take a nice, long, HOT shower to wash off all the camp grime. Feeling clean was the best thing ever. I would rate the camp a 7 out of 10. I hope next years Grade 4 students get hot showers!

Grade 4 Camp

By Simreen K

On the first 3 days of term 4 (7th-9th October), Grade four students and teachers went on camp at the Summit in Trafalgar. AS we arrived, everyone started to bubble up with excitement. A nice staff member hopped on to our bus and instructed us on how camp works. We got off the bus and started pulling up all the really heavy suitcases up an enormous hill.

Our first activity was inflatable city! We had to run through a large inflatable obstacle, and it was really great. At the end the blue team won but it was all just about fun. After that we went to the stadium for afternoon tea, and we had a really fun dance party as we waited for the other teams to come. Later that night, we had an epic disco at the stadium! Everyone was swinging around their torches and dancing around like crazy. We also had a game called Corners which sadly, I didn’t win but that night was still a blast. When it went dark, we all got tucked into bed and eventually went to sleep.

It was officially day two and we all woke up excited for the activities. After breakfast we all rapidly ran to the barbeque shelter to get sorted into our groups. We were all really excited about our next activity. After getting sorted, group 2 marched over to Tash’s ladder which is a really tall ladder that you have to climb up and if it was too easy, we could take 1 foot and both of your hands off! And I managed to do that!

Flying fox was up next and it was over water. It took a long time until it was my turn but when it was, I was sooooo high I got a little bit scared. I ended up going on it and it was sooooo fun! Bit I went backwards, and it was hard to get the rope but luckily, I did. 

Next was laser tag and we did boys versus girls. Both teams had separate bases. To get back in the game you had to get rebooted with a different laser gun. I kept on getting shot by the boys and Mrs Pearce, who was on the boys’ team. After the battle, we went for lunch which was a really good chicken tender wrap!

After lunch we had to do the mud run. The mud run was a muddy obstacle course. We were all so excited First we had to fill up a bucket with holes in it and some people sat in it, so the water filled up easier Second was the tyre lifting which we had to ink our arms with the tyres and take the tyres everywhere we went. Other tasks we had to do was charades, a tennis ball catching game, a ninja pit filled with water and covered by a heavy rope net and a deep ball pit we had to climb out of. The stinkiest activity was the ninja pit but the muddiest was when we had to move 2 tasks of tyres from wooden pillar to another with wooden sleds and ropes. It splashed mud everywhere! Even though it reeked, the ninja pit was my absolute favourite part. We showed incredible resilience by doing the course, not once but TWICE! We were so exhausted afterwards and we got no relief because our showers were cold. We ended up snuggling up with blankets and pillows to watch the movie ‘Migration’. Before it started, Mr Flanagan taught us all a camp song, which was really annoying because it got stuck in our heads!

On the bus ride home, we were annoying Sam and Mrs Walker by singing Mr Flanagan’s song. Sam looked like he would lose his mind while we were singing! I felt so happy when I got back to school, and I was so relieved to go home and have a warm shower. I liked the camp, but I hope Grade 5 camp will have less dirt!