Two hours of teaching plus 1.5 hours mapping, 45 min set-up, 15 min clean up.
Two new sets of kids, and a new school. It is a summer camp program organized by the Cambridgeport/Upton St Community School, under the direction of Carmen Mouzon. I will have 3 Fridays, an hour with each group.
The first group were grades 3-5.
I don't seem to have names; there were about a dozen kids, mix of boys and girls, maybe more boys.
- Discuss orienteering: a map navigation sport, then break down each of those three words.
- Hand out cards: 8 boxes, 3 with pictures of trees, 3 fence, 2 benches. Their task is to find 8 controls with numbers on them, and use manual punch in box corresponding to the feature closest to the control, of the 3 choices. Describe boundary before they start.
- As they return, give them a blank map. Ask them where we are; have them orient the map. Send them out with clipboard and red pen to circle the locations of the controls.
- As they return, send them out with epunch and instructions to get Start-31-32-...-37-38-Finish (no map)
- As they return, invite them to do it again but faster, or try the "advanced" course, see map below. Those who did the advanced course said it was hard but they got it.
I had 5 older helpers: 1 adult, and 4 students. Michael, Gabe, Mr Cruz, Eva, Natalie.
The second group were grades K-2. Helpers: Brianna, Natalie, and one more girl I think.
Kayla, Naaz, Lucia, Camila, Iris, Serena, Henry, Rory.
Similar activities, but slower with discussion at a different level, and much more spelling out of instructions. The kids had a hard time just with the mechanics of the paper punch, which is too bad. It's too hard to press. Should have used stickers for them. Should definitely have used stickers. We got as far as the first epunch exercise. Two kids got all the controls; the others missed one or two. So at the end I took them all together for a jog around all controls, led by Henry and Lucia, who got them all a couple of times to begin with. I came along in the rear and picked up the controls along the way. I asked afterward: did you notice the controls you missed the first time?
We talked about what they liked or didn't like about it. A girl said she liked the electronic timing.
While making the map in the morning I spoke to high school kids there waiting for younger kids they were counselors for in a summer camp. One girl said she'd heard of orienteering; her school, BB&N, goes on a trip to Maine (I think she said) where they do orienteering.
Natalie, one of the counselors for my group, had done orienteering with me previously at Graham and Parks. This is becoming quite common - most groups I work with now in Cambridge have someone who has done orienteering with me before. They usually don't remember me, but they remember the orienteering. Which of course is perfect.
As I was picking up controls a passer-by, older man, stopped to chat about it, and mentioned that his daughter had done orienteering at Graham and Parks years ago. It was Nadia's dad; I recognized him but had to ask his daughter's name and still don't know his.
I was aware that I wanted to include the helpers more. Brianna and Natalie were good with the download station and printer, and Michael helped with that. I had Gabe go out and do the advanced course to get the right answers. I still need to do a better job of having specific instructions for them. It would help if I weren't to some extent making things up as I go along. :-)
After the 1st class, a mother came up to me and said it was a great activity. She was there to pick up her son, but chose to wait and let him finish the activity because it seemed so good. I wasn't able to dwell in the conversation with her because I was already late for working with the younger kids. I need to have little cards to hand out to parents, and I need to encourage them to give me their contact info. It's a missing piece, making that connection back to the families. I don't feel comfortable pushing too hard when I'm there at the school's invitation, but I do want to take advantage of any direct contact with parents.