Tuesday, May 3, 2016

We are so blessed to have the opportunity to take our 5th graders to Outdoor School at a camp in the mountains about 45 minutes away.  We go for three days and two nights.  It is so much work to organize and being on duty with all of the 5th graders for three days straight adds more grey hairs than I’d like to admit.  But I LOVE every minute of it.  The amount of happiness in those three days is worth it all.  And it becomes a real celebration for some students.  This year it was the two boys who had cried off and on for months about not wanting to go because they had never been away from home before.  They both made it and loved it.  Or the kids who struggle with exercise – they hiked miles each day, not noticing how far they went for the fun they were having.  It was yet another success.

To thank the camp and their staff, we have started a tradition of writing an inspired by thank you book.  It is inspired by the book, If You’re Not From the Prairie by David Bouchard – a true gem of a book.

The students made a list of the things that you can’t know about camp if you haven’t been there – cold, hard luck, moose tracking, camouflage, counselors, bacon – and they will get to write their own page of the book about one of them.  My teammates and I wrote our own page yesterday.  I am so deeply grateful that our school district supports this program.

If you’ve never been to Cal-Wood, you don’t know gratitude.

You can’t know gratitude.

Filling our children with fresh mountain air,

With wind, fog, and snowflakes dusting their hair.

Getting dirt in our nails and mud on our shoes,

Creating fond memories we’ll never lose.

Giving them roots to allow them to soar,

Pushing to places not seen before.

Whether in community or lone solitude,

Our thanks pours out in great multitude.

If you’ve never been to Cal-Wood, you don’t know gratitude.