jumping in

today was my first day of teaching classes all on my own. i felt that i was quite under prepared because there was hardly any training involved....so that caused some frustration and nervousness to settle in. after breakfast this morning, i was talking to God and saying, "what in the world am i doing here?! i don't know if i can do this job!" but...i'm so happy to say now that they went really well! it was fun, and the day is closing in a much better way than it started. the classes that i taught were pond lab and creek comparison and coniferous forest field study. the pond one was filled with the kids learning about organisms and metamorphosis of the dragonfly...and digging through algae in the pond and checking out under the microscope all the awesome things that they found. it was so fun to see them get excited about it...to get their hands dirty and work as a team. the coniferous forest one will probably be one of my favorites. we talked about six different kinds of trees and i took the kids around camp locating the different ones. did ya'll know that the coulter pines are nicknamed the "widow maker" because they have the heaviest pine cones out of any in the world...and they can get up to nine pounds a piece! whoa! they're quite amazing. i found out before i did the coniferous class that one of the chaperones had actually studied forestry in college. great, i thought. here i am teaching the class for the first time and i've got a pro on my hands. it went fantastic though. she was so kind...and added a few things here and there, but it was all good.
then tonight i did a quick activity called wilderness attitude. it was basically talking about what to do in survival situations...and the kids did skits to demonstrate. it was super.
it's amazing how tired you can get after working with kids all day. they're great, but man, i sure appreciate my bed at the end of the day.
oh...and for those of you that have asked...my camp name is creek :)

goodnight to you all...