Snails and Pigtails Photography blog

Crowne Hill Elementary School has such great opportunities for their students. I am so grateful that the 5th grade teacher’s decided to take their  personal time and plan the 5th grade Astro Camp weekend retreat for their students. When I first heard about Astro Camp in Idyllwild, CA. I knew that this was a trip I did not want my daughter to miss out on and I knew I wanted to chaperone this trip. To my luck and a little bit of skill I was chosen after interviewing for the position. I am so happy that I was able to chaperone because it was so fun and it was nice to see my daughter interact with her peers.

I took over 600 pictures that weekend and here are just a few that I chose. I wish I could show you all more but those pictures are of other children and I did not get their parents to sign the model release considering there were about 200 students at the camp.

The first thing we see once we unpack all the student’s, teacher’s and parent chaperone’s luggage is “the meadows”. It was such a serene feeling for me to sit there and breathe in the crisp cool air and look at the clear blue skies while having our sack lunches.

 

Once I got my group of 8 girls all settled into their dorm room, I found my dorm room right at the end of the hall. The girls’ took over the top floor while the boys held down the first floor. My daughter dormed with 5 other girls in her room and their favorite past time before their 9pm “lights out” curfew…a game of UNO.

Astro Camp isn’t all fun and games. There is also some serious learning involved. Well, actually to the kids it is still all fun and games. For me, as a chaperone, waking up at 6am and chaperoning a group  of 15 kids with 7 wild boys, it was hard work! Here are a few pictures of my daughter hard at work .

Building her Cosmic Lander with her BFF as her partner, the two girls won the competition of building a landing devise for the water balloon. They had “$100″ to buy materials such as rubber bands, paper clips, paper, tape, etc to build something that could land on their choice of the “moon, mars or a crater”. The grand prize winners had the fun time of throwing a water balloon at their Astro Camp instructor, Brian.

Our schedule for the weekend was action packed, I think that the students, chaperones and teachers all had one common thing they looked forward to…Well maybe 3 things, BREAKFAST, LUNCH, and DINNER!

TO my surprise the meals at Astro Camp were really good. You would expect much with the facility having to cook for over 200 kids. But they had a very strict system of how the kids came in, where they sat and how they got up to get their food and drinks. We called it an organized mess.

Back to learning…

Rocket Launcher! Building her rocket using 4 sprial propellers, weighing in at 250 grams is Unicorn Blaster.

Putting her rocket on the launch pad.

Getting ready for BLAST OFF! Her rocket ship went really high and had such a beautiful landing. My rocket “Breaking Dawn”, not so much. It malfunctioned at take off.  It didn’t even get the 4, 3,2, 1 Blast Off count down.

Between classes, the kids do get a few 15 minute breaks. EVERY time the kids would beg me, “Mrs. Nguyen, can we please please play GAGA ball”.

Gaga ball is like dodge ball but you’re confined in this octagon shaped ring and you can only hit the ball with your fist. You aim at the players legs and feet and I don’t think you can catch the ball. The last man standing wins.

The next class does not involve any standing, in fact you should be floating like Microgravity.

In this case, you’re floating in water. The kids broke up into groups and got into wet suits and learned about buoyancy and they were assigned to build a contraption underwater as if they were in space.

Hands down, the most exciting class the kids’ participated in was the zipline which was part of the ropes course.

This is how I want to remember my daughter’s last year in elementary school. Zipping through life, with excitement and a huge smile.

I hope you enjoyed “what astro camp looks like”. If you are interested in Astro Camp, they offer summer programs if your school does not. The 5th grade teachers are so generous to take the time out to plan this experience for their students. They don’t get extra pay and they are taking the weekend from their family to be with the students. As a chaperone, I was really exhausted. We really did work from morning to night. The night activities were amazing. The star gazing was my favorite class but with the high end telescopes we were not allowed to take pictures. Now it’s time for you to gaze at wonderful images from photography star…

Deb Schwedhelm | Tampa Child and Family Photographer