Starspinning, Donkaay! and a tape measure

This week is one of my favorites of the entire school year because all of my students are on a field trip to Camp Tecumseh. 600 students make up the 7th grade so we split them into two different sessions. The first 300 come Monday through Wednesday and the second 300 come Wednesday through Friday. A few teachers, like me, get to stay the whole time, but the rest of the teachers, parents, students and HS counselors all switch.

Because internet service is almost as scarce as sleep, I'll go with a list of things I don't want to forget each day rather than longer explanations.

- This is the first year that some of the HS students were my students back when they were 7th graders.

- Jordan, Saba and Natalie sprinted across Main Field to see me once they got off the bus.

- Jordan was actually a CILT this past summer.

- Natalie, Sabrina, Peyton, Hannah, Chad and Brian are all now Young Life kids so it is awesome having them at camp.

- The counselors decided to have themes for each day that they're at camp. Today is "Would You Be My Friend If I Wore This Day." I love all their outfits.

- Maggie came to play with me for the next three days! I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. Obviously she loves the summer side of camp but it's cool to have her here with my school.

- Watching all the counselors with their groups of 7th graders was really cool. Kind of like the educational version of CILTs.

- Mags and I found a broken tape measure in Main Field. With the help of Beesley we decided to try to make it work again by disassembling the whole thing and then putting it back together. We had to borrow a screwdriver for Josiah along the way. Between the tape measure Otterbox, Adam's comments, the little black plastic piece and our confusion we ended up laughing for a good fifteen minutes.

- Maggie got to help set up for Capture the Flag and then ring the bell for the first time ever.

- During Capture the Flag we got Trevor to do the army crawl, somersault and cartwheel for a flag for the Yellow team.

- When Mitch ran by with red paint circles around his eyes we yelled, "You look really scary." He looked back at us with the most sincere look on his face and said, "Thank you," like that was exactly what he had been going for and was so thankful someone had recognized it.

- A little 7th grade boy goes by Donkaay in the Social Studies class next to mine so I call him Donkaay too. Here at camp he searches me out, does this gun-pointing thing and screams "DONKAAY!" while smiling and waits for me to do it back to him. Hilarious every time.

- The boy who got a stick and a rock as prizes is in heaven here with all the leaves. Not fifteen minutes after he'd been with his group he had stuffed leaves into his bandanna to make a nature headdress.

- Maggie and I loved running around during Capture the Flag to see all of the kids and counselors. I love that here I get to be so much more camp-Sarah-Wright than school-Miss-Wright.

- Mags and I rarely get to see each other and I only see YL girls like Hannah for a couple hours each week. It's so fun that we get to be together for three whole days.

- During Crazy Olympics I played a CD of fun new-ish songs that the kids would be able to sing along too because music makes everything more fun. A few teachers doubted the quality of what they called my "teeny bopper music" but when I turned around they were belting out every word of "That's What Makes You Beautiful."

- When "It's Time" came on we had a circle of girls doing the stomp that goes along with the rhythm in the background of the music.

- Maggie and I got to go on the Pizza Hut run with Kriger--a very prestigous job. We get 18 pizza for all of the counselors to eat at the end of the night.

- I first taught just Sophie, Sabrina, Natalie and Mags to Star Spin. Soon we had a crowd of counselors that kept taking turns spinning... and falling down in Main Field until 11pm. Even Kriger, Beesley and I took a turn.