The big 5th grade field trip at Mill Creek is a 3 day/2 night trip to Camp McDowell in Nauvoo, AL. It is a mixture of educational and fun activities, and I’d heard good things about it from parents who had attended in previous years. This year’s trip was scheduled for March 6th-8th. Brooklyn was a mixture of excited and nervous leading up to camp. I was excited to be going on the trip as a chaperone, but a little nervous wondering if I would get any sleep since I don’t sleep that well usually away from home. I also didn’t know any of the other moms and quite a few of the girls assigned to our cabin. It would be an adventure, for sure!
On the first day, we got to school around 8:15 AM to load our luggage in one of the cars and then meet in the cafeteria by cabin. We loaded the buses a little while later. The kids were all hyped up, and it was a loud bus ride. I may have been slightly regretting my decision to come on the trip at that point…haha. Brooklyn chose to sit with Paisleigh, and I sat by myself 😉 I tried not to hover over her during the trip and let her enjoy being with her friends. We got stuck in traffic on the interstate due to a couple of wrecks, so it seemed to take forever to get there. We finally arrived around 11:30AM or so. We quickly found our cabin (Ed’s) and claimed our beds and then went to the dining hall for lunch. We sat family style for our meals, and the people we sat with at lunch would be at our table for the rest of the meals during our time at camp. We also learned the procedures of the dining hall in terms of how to get our food and clean up afterward, and there were quite a few rules. The chicken sandwiches were better than I was expecting, as was all the food!
They updated this chalkboard in the dining hall with our schedule of activities, and we learned that our first class after lunch was called Hop, Slither, Slide with Eden. She was great! The girls sat in a circle and learned about the differences between reptiles and amphibians. They got to touch a box turtle and a snake. It was neat to see how the snake really did feel cold after learning about it being a cold-blooded animal.
We went on a muddy and wet hike after that. We crossed a suspension bridge, walked around plenty of puddles and mud, got wet from dripping water, passed a waterfall, and went in a canyon. Eden also found a juvenile eastern red spotted newt and picked it up so we could all see it. I didn’t realize that newts were a type of salamander before learning about them in class.
After our hike, we were all tired and hungry! We had snack time at the Rec Hall followed by some free time before we ate dinner (spaghetti). After dinner, we learned about food waste and started to learn some tips about how to reduce food waste. They measured all of our food waste (the food and drink left on our plates and in our cups) after dinner at 26 pounds collectively!! We definitely had some work to do to lower that number!
After dinner, we had an evening program with all of the girls from Mill Creek called Our Galaxy where we learned about space. The girls performed short skits in groups about different planets, and Brooklyn’s group was assigned to Saturn. We then walked away from the Rec Hall toward a darker area to do some stargazing. Our instructors pointed out the Big Dipper and a couple of other things they saw. We have a lot of light pollution near our house in Madison, so it’s neat to be out in nature where you can see the stars so much better!
The kids had a quick night snack of goldfish and orange slices before we all headed to our cabins for showers and bed. It was an interesting challenge trying to get 11 girls showered with only 2 showers…haha. I think we finally turned out the lights around 10:30 pm. I slept in one of the rooms with 4 girls, including Brooklyn. They fell asleep fairly quickly and were pretty quiet after we turned out the lights. The other side was definitely rowdier, but they eventually quieted down 😉 I didn’t sleep great the first night, but I slept enough that I wasn’t exhausted the next morning.
On day #2, we had to be at the dining hall by 7:50 am, so there was no time to sleep in 😉 Brooklyn started camp with a pretty loose tooth, and this morning at breakfast it got twisted around funny in her mouth. She asked me to pull it, and I was able to get it out pretty easily. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever pulled one of the girls’ teeth. Usually that’s Travis’s job…actually most of the time, Brooklyn pulls her own loose teeth out. The tooth fairy didn’t bring any $1 bills to camp though, so she had to wait until she got home for her dollar…haha.
After breakfast, the Kingsnakes were assigned to the Climbing Wall, which was a lot higher than I figured it would be!! Brooklyn did so great and made it over halfway to the top!! She eventually got to a point where she couldn’t get good footing anymore, so she decided to stop there and come down. I was really proud of her for trying! We’ve never done any big rock walls like that before. The point of the activity was to give the girls a chance to stretch out of their comfort zones, whether that meant just putting on the harness, climbing a few feet, or all the way to the top. It was neat to see them cheering each other on too.
Our next activity was the Team Challenge, which involved some team building exercises and games. It was fun to see the girls try to work together to finish the challenges successfully. One of them involved “stealing” a stuffed animal dog from the instructor and making it back across the field to the finish line without him figuring out who had it. It was a red light green light/guessing game challenge. They also played a game where they had to all jump over a rope and land at the same time on the other side. The games were definitely a challenge, and the girls had to figure out how to work together well to finish them.
Some of Brooklyn’s friends didn’t end up in the same cabin with her, but she enjoyed seeing them during the day at the various activities. Victoria is a sweet friend from our neighborhood, and I loved seeing Brooklyn and Makenzie holding hands as they walked together toward the cabins.
We had BBQ sandwiches for lunch, followed by a couple more activities. The first one was a Meet A Map class about map reading. The girls learned about scale, orienting a map, landmarks, etc., and then they split up in groups to use a map to try to find different numbered trees around camp. It was a fun challenge, although Brooklyn said later it was her least favorite activity because maps were too hard 😉 We are definitely spoiled these days with GPS…haha.
Brooklyn really enjoyed the Survival Skills class after that though. The girls got to build shelters out of fallen trees and logs in the woods after a short hike. It reminded me of how Brooklyn and her sisters like to move logs and branches around by the creek near our house. She teamed up with Paisleigh and Lucy P., and they did a great job leaning their logs against a fallen tree to make something that looked like a teepee. They didn’t have time to finish it completely, but I thought they did great!
Afterward, we had snack and free time again. Brooklyn picked out a tie-dye t-shirt that she wanted to buy from the camp store. Dinner was chicken and rice with yum yum sauce. I thought it was great! They also served dessert both nights after dinner. At every meal, including this one, they measured our food waste. Our goal as a school was to lower our food waste to 9.5 pounds (down from 26 lbs the first night). We still didn’t hit our goal, but we had one more meal to go the next morning. Our group was assigned to be the Sweepers after dinner, which meant we were responsible for sweeping the dining hall of all the food and crumbs on the floor.
Our night class was called Birds of a Feather, and it was for the entire group of Mill Creek kids in the chapel. It was really cool! We learned about different birds of prey and even got to see a red tailed hawk and a vulture. The vulture was raised by humans and couldn’t live in the wild. It apparently is super smart and can eat food out of dog treat puzzles. It flew over our heads in the chapel from one corner of the room to another, back and forth several times. It was really neat! I learned several facts about birds I didn’t know before. We had another quick night snack at the dining hall, followed by showers and lights out. I slept better the second night because I was tired by the end of the day!
We had to have our cabin packed up and cleaned by breakfast the next morning, so we got up earlier to make sure we had time to get everything done. We ended up having plenty of time and the girls played at the playground for a few minutes before breakfast. At breakfast, we managed to get down to 7 lbs of food waste, which meant we met our goal. Everyone cheered! 😊 We learned some tips about how to reduce food waste at home, and I think the kids were supposed to teach their families the tips after they left camp 😉 I was impressed that they even made the meals educational. Brooklyn even volunteered to go up and try to answer a question for a Family Feud style game for our table.
Our classes for the morning got cut short/cancelled due to rain, unfortunately. We started our Animals in Motion class, but didn’t get to go on the hike because it started to rain pretty hard. We were supposed to do Aquatic Adventures after that, where you get to wade in the creek and look for different bugs/fish. Brooklyn and the other girls were pretty disappointed. I think this was the class they were looking forward to the most.
We ended up just hanging out and having free time at the Rec Hall for a while until lunch was ready. We ate sack lunches and waited on the buses to arrive so we could load up. It was a much quieter bus ride home. Brooklyn said she fell asleep two different times…haha.
Overall, it was a really fun experience, and I would definitely go back. I loved that it gave the kids (and adults) a chance to unplug from the real world and their devices and get out in nature to learn in a hands-on way. Hopefully I’ll have another opportunity when Savannah is in 5th grade next year. I was proud of Brooklyn for her behavior at camp, and I think she was glad to have me there. We made some good memories together and learned a lot!
