Our second week-By: Madison George

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Last week we went to Red Pine Camp for some team building and to get to know each other a bit better.

We did so many fun activities. Here are some:


Some Algonquin friends from the Pikwakanagan nation, Barrie and Chris, came to Red pine to do a drum circle with us. We got to dance and males got to play the drum (The reason why only the males could play the grandmother drum is that it was given to them so that they were equal to Women because women have the power to give life.) We had a great time as a community.


We also got to do some trust exercises on the ropes course. We did one where everybody held a mat to catch each other and we had to try to climb up a very wobbly ladder. We did another challenge where we had to use our partner to walk across a wire. We did some others like trust falls. 

We had a workshop about evolution with B followed by an activity with Shauna and a game with Deagan called Predator and Prey, that all went together. We also played a game called Sardines, one of our favourites, the Owl game, and we learned another new game called Brog. 



 At mealtime, we helped out with setting up the tables and sloping (doing the dishes), which we all loved! 


Another team building activity that we did was Minute to Win it. We had different challenges we had to compete with our partner. Some people were paired with people they were not usually paired with so we got to get to know some new people. This is the first activity we have done this year that was competitive, so it was a bit of an experiment. It went really well, nobody was over-competitive and we all had fun trying to beat the clock.


During our free time we got to hang out with friends, take a nap after all the activity, play some sports, read, and explore the camp. 

On our last night, we had a campfire and that was really fun! We sang some funny campfire songs and some more calm ones with Deagan (singing and on the guitar) and B (singing). We had some amazing nights with games and chatting, and in some cabins, B even sang us to sleep!


We had a ton of fun and got to know each other better. It was very fun and we were all sad to have to come home, but when we got back we did some more amazing learning!

When we came back we did an activity we did last year at Red Pine called True Colours. With this activity, we used a scoring system to score different words that you identify with. At the end, we were placed into a colour group that describes you. For most people, they identified with the descriptions.

This week we will be volunteering at the Courtyard Retirement home, which is a retirement home for seniors with memory concerns like dementia. One of B’s nurse friends came in to talk to us about dementia. She told us about what happens to the brain and gave us techniques to help seniors with dementia. We loved the presentation, asked juicy question, and learned lots.
 
We had an amazing week!




We had an amazing week and can’t wait till next week!!

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