Thursday, April 2, 2009

Underground Railroad by Meaghan Podlaski

Today we experienced the experience of the Underground Railroad. We started out in our fire drill lines and we closed our eyes and our teachers went into characters. Then, we were treated like slaves, without the abuse. After that we were brought into one of the two gyms in Nature's Classroom. That was the ship we road over “ocean” to be sold as slaves to a plantation in the southern United States.

We were sold into a plantation. We had to be tested on our strength. After a while, our plantation owner gave up on us and bought more “slaves”. Then our “conductors” decided to go to work and tried to make us free. We traveled down a road and met a man who asked us who was our conductor was. None of us answered to him, because if we were to tell who our conductors were they were going to be shot and killed. Fortunately for us, the man turned out to be one of the people that helped slaves. He gave us some “money” and a fake pass to get away from people who wanted to return us back to our plantation.

A little while later, we came across some private landowners. The didn't really believe us that we were going to a railroad in West Virgina to work. They asked us more questions and they wanted us to tell them who the conductor was. We never said a word. After a while, they started to believe us and led us back on trail.

Then, some bounty hunters found us and told us we were runaway slaves. But we said no like we were told. They wanted to turn us in, so they did.

On our way over to the sheriff, a lady came by which was a anti-slavery person and the man's friend. She said she would take us to the sheriff but she lied and handed us over to a safe house.

At the safe house, they had us hide because the sheriff was out looking for the runaway slaves. The people living in the safe house hid us behind a crate and in the fireplace so we wouldn't get caught. Luckily, we didn't.

Then, we left the safe house and ran for safety to Canada. In Canada, we learned a little more background information on the Underground Railroad. I had a lot of fun with the Underground Railroad activity we did here. It was a dramatic, exciting experience that most likely changed some of our minds on slavery and how brutally they were treated.

2nd and 3rd Day at N.C by Adriana D'Orazio

Yesterday here at Nature's Classroom, we did many things. Our breakfast was very good, we had french toast sticks and bacon, yum. Our ort at breakfast was 8lbs., which I must say was bad . Then we met up with our field groups and took a long hike up the mountain. There was a fire pit a long the way and we built a fire! After that we came down the mountain and went to our first class. Then we had lunch which no one could wait for. Our ort for that was 4.5lbs. which we all screamed for joy, because we did very good. After lunch we went to our second class. Which flew by so fast. Then we went to dinner, and we had tacos! Everyone enjoyed them.Our ort for dinner was 10lbs. No one was impressed. And once again we ended our day with sining in the Morse Hall. That was our second day at Nature's Classroom.

Now we are here at Nature's Classroom for our 3rd day and we start if off like any other day, breakfast. This breakfast was better than yesterday, including our food and ort. The food this morning was great, waffles. Since mostly everyone ate them, our ort was only 2.5lbs.. That was the lowest we have gotten so far! After that we played the worlds biggest game of tag, to be more specific predator and prey tag. That went on for an hour, but since everyone was having so much fun it went by very quick. Then we had an hour break, and us girls had a talent show and fashion show! Then it came to lunch, the food was also awesome for lunch! Many people were hungry! That also ment that we had a great ort report. Our ort was 4.5lbs. Yeah! After lunch we met up with our field groups for an hour and a half, and did team-building activities. After that we had a class. In that we had many choices, which was so hard to decide, but they all were fun! Then we had dinner, and on that hand wasn't so great. The food was ok. So our ort was 10lbs. Yuck. After dinner was the biggest most dramatic event that happened here at Nature's Classroom - the Underground Railroad!! Underground Railroad consisted of different activities when we went back in time to slavery and we tried to escape. That was so much fun, everyone enjoyed it. And like usual we ended our in the Morse Hall singing a long to songs.

Nature's Classroom so far... by Mr. Sedlar

WOW,

I have to say that our bloggers are doing an excellent job informing everybody back home about the things that are going on here. They are working really hard on writing the notes and we should applaud them for that :) (clap,clap)

All the students seem to have a great time and they are VERY active during the day. Teachers and chaperons have also been very involved with the kids and they seem to get tired much quicker than the kids (especially Mr. DeMarco :)) While the kids were doing different activities with the Nature's classroom staff, some teachers had an opportunity to walk around this beautiful Silver Bay Resort. The weather so far has been pretty good and we definitely took advantage of that. When the kids didn't spend time with the Nature's Classroom teachers they were playing kickball, basketball, soccer tennis (hard to explain), fashion show, etc...Overall, it was not only great experience for students, but also for many teachers and chaperons who visited this resort for the first time.

Underground Railroad was probably the most exciting experience for the students and VERY educational. Again, the Nature's Classroom teacher did a wonderful job organizing this event and things went very smooth. I dont want to write too much about the Underground Railroad since I am sure you will hear more about when we arrive home.

We would also like to thank the parents for trusting us with their children and I know students got so much out of it. The Nature's classroom is an awesome experience for any student and we hope this tradition will continue for many, many years.

Again thank you so much :)

Lisha Kill Staff and Parent/Chaperons & The Lisha Kill Bloggers

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

First and Second Day by Joey Audi

The first day of lunch was really good. We had macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets and salad. Lunch is just getting over with. After lunch my friends and I went to our room and chilled out for about 30 minutes, after that I went to my group leader and did all sorts of fun activities like hiking, building fires. But most of the first is day was just going over the rules and expectations of natures classroom. On Tuesday the teachers woke us up at 7:00 a.m. That is really early for me! I have four roommates which means that 2 people have to take a shower at night and 2 people have to take a shower in the morning, but instead me and my friends all decided to take one in the morning. Well that didn't work out too well for us because we all were late! Well this is my blog for Wednesday April 1st. I better go its breakfast time we are having French toast!!

Second Day By: Meaghan Podlaski

Today was a great day at Nature's Classroom. This morning we all met at the cafeteria for breakfast which included French toast, bacon, and cereal. Then we got into our field groups and did different activities. Some groups went on a hike up Sunset mountain, which once you got to the top, you had a beautiful view of Lake George. Other groups played team building games.

After our two hour activities in our field groups, we had lunch. For lunch we had potato chips and hamburgers. After lunch we were introduced to todays workshop classes. Some classes included making bouncy balls, disecting a baby shark, fruit or garbage or we could make our own roller coasters.

Our trip to Nature's Classroom has been great. The weather has been beautiful here in Lake George. It has rained a little, but mostly it has been sunny. Everyone here misses you all and we can't wait to see everyone once we get back.

Fun at Nature's Classroom by John Baluch

Today is the first day and we arrived at about 11:38 and when we got there all the nature's classroom teachers introduced themselves and what they like to eat on Tuesday at lunch. When we tried to find our bags it was kind of tough because there was a lot of bags on the porch. Going up to our rooms were painful because everybody's bags weighed a ton. After we got settled in we went down to the dining hall for some rules from the director of natures classroom and her name is Ashely. The lunch we had was chicken nuggets and they were good!!

The next day us boys got a rude wake up call in the morning at about 7:05. They came running in to our room banging on the walls and screaming come on get up. I don't know if the girls had a rude wake up call.

A couple of hours later we went on a two hour hike up to Inspiration Point. It was tiring. Some of the groups didn't go all the way up to the top because they made little fires before they went on the hike and they didn't have enough time to go all the way to the top of the mountain. Right now as I'm writing this blog us boys and girls are playing kickball. Its the “Fluffy Bunnies” verses the “Tigers”, and believe it or not us boys are the “Fluffy Bunnies” and the girls are the “Tigers”. Well thats all we have done so far and im sure I'll blog again.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

First Day at Nature's Classroom by Adriana D' Orazio

Today was super crazy at Lisha Kill Middle School. This was the day that we were leaving for Nature's Classroom. The tennis courts were filled with book bags, sleeping bags and luggage bags. Everyone is super excited and cant stop talking. When the buses got here all of the students screamed with joy. All eyes were glared out the windows.

When we got on the buses everything was out of control. Nobody knew who to sit with or where to go nor what to do. But overall the bus ride was great, we watched Madagascar 2, which was pretty funny. Except one of the t.vs broke so it was kind of hard for some people to see.When we got here, we went straight to our first meal,lunch. It was very crazy in the dining hall. Our ort today was 5lbs for lunch, which wasn't so bad considering it was our first time. Later on after we met up with our field groups and played games and activities like listening to the sounds. But we were not so happy because our next meal was coming closer than you think, dinner.

Dinner time was spectacular. We had tacos! But the bad part was ort. We had 10 lbs. worth of ort. But after we ate our main meal we had a dessert, popsicles! Which was pretty good. We had entertainment after all the eating, the waitrons had to perform a song and dance in front of us. And which I don't think they very much enjoyed.

After dinner we went back to our field groups and went on the craziest night adventure, the night hike. What we did was go throughout the woods and would stay silent so we could here the different noises like the wind and animals. After that we went in a nice, dry spot and had to lay down and look up at the stars and had to make a wish. In my field group we all seen the Big Dipper!

So when that was done we all got back to the Morris Hall and sat around singing songs. We were all sad when the leader announced that we had to go to bed. In a way it was a good thing because we were all tired when we got in our rooms. And that was the end of our first day here at Nature's Classroom.