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One of my favorite things at Camp Namanu was a game called Predator Prey. It was a game where you’re in a group of people and you’re either a type of insect or amphibian or snake or falcon. Insects gets eaten by everything (I was an insect), Amphibians can only eat food flags and insects (which everyone needs) and snakes ate insects and amphibians while falcons eat everything. How you eat other people is your leader blows a whistle the you run at them for ten seconds. After ten seconds you can not be attacked or be attack for two minutes. If you are being attacked you don’t want to be tagged or you become them. I was a insect and never got tagged! By Sebastian
What I liked ab0ut Camp Namanu was this game called Camouflage. It normally has 3 rounds, unless y0u don’t have enough time for all 3 0f them. The first 2 rounds, you have to get super close to the person counting without getting seen. When the person counting sees you, they call you out and you have to stay behind them and not help find anyone. So basically you have to be boring/bored, even if you see someone. The third round, though, is a bit different. In the third round, you have to physically tag the tagger without getting heard. By then the tagger is blindfolded, so you don’t have to worry about getting seen… but that’s only in the third round. I really like this game, and recommend it to people that like more of a challenging version of Hide-And-Seek. By Lilyana
I was at Camp Namanu walking to the Sandy River with my study group tromping through the under brush until we came to the river. Then are instructor told us to look for water bugs under rocks. When I was chasing a water skipper by jumping on rocks. Then all of a sudden I fell into the river and got like four gallons of water in my shoes. Plus I was wearing my favorite Panda Socks which sucks. So that is the story of the soggy footwear. By Fred
On April 20 we had left for an amazing experience that a lot of 5th graders experience and that would be the 5th grade science camp. We went to Camp Namanu and had stayed for two nights and three days. When we arrived and were still in the school bus the first thing we all saw were was little deer.
On the night of day two we were back at our cabins and going crazy until it was lights out, I was getting ready for bed and I was waiting to get picked to go into my mom’s little room to vote for a the ME awards that me and my mom made and I fell and heard a crack so I stood up and didn’t realize what had broke so I took off my glasses to make sure I didn’t snap my glasses and I realized that my lens fell out so we searched for that, and Lily found it and I was putting it back into place and the top of my glasses broke too. I’m glad I have an extra pair.
On day three we had one last interest group and that meant it was team challenge. The first activity we did for the team challenge was a game where we chose a partner and untied one of our shoes then we put our right hand behind our back and tied my shoe with our left hand. We were not good but not bad. We also played a game where we had rope and made a circle and had to fit all of our feet in the circle flat on the ground and the circle kept getting smaller and smaller. I fell over a couple of times.
Next we did my favorite game in the team challenge and that was the game where we had our feet together and could not have them apart or we had to start over. We tried hopping a couple of times until we started to army crawl. Then we played a game where we had a picture and had to describe it to people and put it in order and see the whole picture. I had an amazing camp experience and I’m looking forward to next year. By Sevyn
A couple days ago and not that far away…
There was me and a friend out in the wilderness, looking for a place to make a shelter. We finally saw a hole in the ground with some sticks on it. He told me to go look for bark to cover us from rain. In the hole there was already some bark in there so I grabbed it. Next he told me to go look for big sticks, for the foundation. Next I told him to go look for ferns for the roof. He came back with a handful of ferns. Our shelter was complete. I went to go look for our instructor and told him we had finished. When I saw everyone else’s shelter I knew, we had the best one. Anyway we made a shelter for one of our survival interest groups.
Maybe a day after and not that far away…We were on KP.
“It’s time” Erin told us. Immediately we all scattered around the tables looking for forks and plates to clean. “Alright, bring me your plates and I’ll show you how it’s done. First get soap on the washcloth. Then dip the plates or forks in the water and clean,” Erin told us. After we were done we left and played… Gaga ball… By Liam
On Monday, we got on the bus and took an hour drive to get to Camp Namanu. IT TOOK SOOOO LONG!!! Once we got there, we took our stuff out of the bus and listened to announcements. Then we moved into our CABIN! Our cabin was named Ginny’s. It was the biggest and best cabin ever!! Staying in it were Kellen, Simon, Vince, Solomon, Gabe, Evan, Shawn Straight, Miles, Alex, Kellen’s dad (Martin), and me. I got a top bunk. Under me, was Miles. To the right of me, was David. To the left of me, was Solomon. In front of me, was Kellen. At night, it was completely dark in the cabin, except the second night when Martin built us a fire. Our cabin was so warm the first night, we all slept without our shirts. My mom said it must have been a heck of a Gun Show.
After we unpacked our gear, it was time to eat our sack lunches. We ate in Uncle Toby’s, which was the main lodge. After lunch, we played capture the flag. Our team got obliterated. It was unfair, but I didn’t care. Maybe I cared a little–but who cares! Our Brown Interest Group met for the first time when recess was over. For team challenges we played Human Knot, which was fairly awkward, but fun. Our team unknotted itself really fast (under two minutes) for practice, but it took us over five minutes to unknot ourselves when we tried it for real. When the grown ups joined us, we did even worse! Martin made an amazing untangling move though!
On the second day we got to do kitchen duty, so for breakfast we set all the tables and washed the dishes. Then after breakfast, we got sorted into our groups. I was in the “Trout Group.” We went on a short hike and we played a game called Mingle. In that game, we got to choose our camp names, which meant you pick an animal name that begins with the same letter your own name starts with–like Henry, the Hawk (that was my name)–but we never really used the camp names. Then we went on a big hike for FIVE hours! We hiked around for a while and then had lunch. Where we hand launch was the most awesome thing ever! It was a treehouse overlooking the river. then we hiked back. The scenery was amazing threw out the hole trip.
FOOD—–The food was great. The first night we had homemade chili and for dessert we had brownies. Personally I liked the chili more! For breakfast the first day we had bacon and eggs. I LOVED the bacon! That night we had we had tacos! It was truly Taco Tuesday!
On the last day we collected algae to look at under a microscope. Something weird happened one of the bugs we accidentally caught had 3 babies?! By Henry
At science camp I got sick on wednesday so it was less enjoyable than it could be but, it was ok. I had a good time anyway. In one of the interest groups we got into teams and built a shelter. The teacher threatened to dump a bucket of water on to our shelter while we were inside but didn’t do it. During recess Sevyn’s mom took me, Lillyana, and Peyton to some REALLY OLD cabins that didn’t have windows walls or doors that overlooked the river. Great view. I had a lot of fun. I liked playing predator prey. I got chosen as a red tailed hawk. The top of the food chain in the game. The goal of the game was to survive. If you were a hawk your goal was to eat a lot of other animals. Science camp was awesome. By Sage
I held a rough-skinned newt that me and Fred named Toothy Jr. (Toothy Sr. is a poofer (dragon) that is in the Poofer Army) Anyway the rest is classified. We were holding him (well, I was holding him) and he jumped off my hand and epically face planted in the mud and when his face got off part of his face has a lot of mud on it.
A DAY BEFORE… I did KP (Kitchen Party or Kitchen Patrol, whatever you want to call it.) for the breakfast part of Tuesday and on dinner, I ate a Rice Krispies Treat and an eighth with my Burrito (soft taco), then we did the team challenge where you got to be blindfolded and you were navigated by a person. I was the first blindfolded person and the other favorite was this Red light, Green light, a game where you have to get the egg to the other side without getting called out. That was some of my favorite things out of those three days at Camp Namanu. We did Ph tests on a stream and it was 8.6 which was pretty fresh. We caught two newts and it was a great catch. and in robin hood’s barn I looked in a microscope and i saw a spider thing in my microscope and it was eating a plankton. and I thought it was a zooplankton because maybe it was eating phytoplankton.
And lastly we played Camouflage on the morning walk on tuesday and I was never found. and I heard a rumor that Joe fell off his cabin. By Sean
On a sunny day at Camp Namanu I was packing my stuff so I could leave Camp Namanu without having to pack everything. I finished it and then I brought all my stuff on the bridge where I saw the bathroom roof and the railing.
The railing was close to the bathroom roof, the bathroom roof was three feet of the ground so I climbed on the railing and jumped for the roof, but when I landed, I missed my footing and I fell off on the ground. It hurt a LOT!! That was a thing that I did again, but I actually landed on it the right way. I mostly liked the part where we got to dissect owl pellets and I found a bunch of leg bones and 2 skulls of a rat or mouse, It was also really cool when she ( our group leader) got 2 ropes and she made one rough and one smooth, then she swung both around to make the bird wing sounds, the one that was smooth everybody could here but the one that was rough you could not hear because it was the owl wing, and owl wing are rough so you can not hear them, that’s why they are so quiet. By Joe
The bridge were all the excess water goes from the pond, also right next to Salamanderville or Sallyville. I put a big stick to keep other sticks from going into the creek. I took a piece of bark and called it a boat and put it down the falls but it didn’t come out, I was confused but I put another piece and it did come out and I put another one, and guess what? It did come out. So I went under the bridge I did even think I could access under the bridge. There was a salamander stuck in some twigs so I picked him up and put him back in the pond. And unclogged it. Shelter building! Me and two other people found a place to build it I got a lot of bark and moss and found bark oldly in one place another group must of it there. We had a lot of fun doing it! It was smallish. One tall person could fit in it or two shorter people could. By Elliott
My favorite part about Camp Namanu was our weird dance Party in the Eeyore Cabin. Sevyns mom Sara said it was okay. We had the party with Madilinney, Lesley, Mckela, Lillyana, Sage, Sevyn, Sandra, Ruby, and Claire with no music because we didn’t have any Wifi, so we just started singing All About That Base really loud and while we were dancing Sevyns glasses broke. After Sevyn sort of fixed her glasses we started saying jokes. My joke was “Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?” “Why?” “To get to the Bottom!” And they didn’t even laugh.
Part Two
When we got bored and we had to get quiet so we played Hide and Go Seek and of course I hid with Ruby under a bed and then Lesley joined us so it was really crowded but we ended up winning of course, so we just kept hiding with each other and winning all of the rounds. When it was 10:05 we had to get ready for bed which took a really long time because everybody just wanted to talk and talk, so at 10:30 everybody was finally quiet and went to bed. Sort of. A bunch of the girls came into me, Sevyn, Sandra, Ruby and Claire’s room and we talked for a really long time. The stuff we talked about is to be undiscussed.
The next morning we overslept and we were almost missed breakfast but luckily we didn’t because we went the super secret way to the dining hall. When we got there they were still talking about what we were having for breakfast. When we got inside it smelt like coffee and eggs. We had Oatmeal, bacon, and some other really good things. After breakfast we went back the SUPER SECRET way back to our cabin to get ready for field study.
For field studies we dissected Owl Pellets! When we got our Owl Pellets our instructor told us that we were not going to use gloves and I thought that was really gross but it wasn’t so bad because we were also using dental tools but it was still really gross trying to get the bones out of the fur. In the middle of dissecting I found my first skull but when I got it I broke the skull and little bit but it wasn’t that noticeable. The hard part was trying to get the fur out of the skull but I used some of the dental tools and eventually got most most of the fur out. At the end I could almost make a whole skeleton but I was missing one other Hip Bone. By June
Camp was so fun it was amazing. we got to catch nutes and bugs, dissect owl pellets, eat food, have fun, hike, stay up till 10:00, and have fire we had to hike to get to the fire pit it was amazing. There was a lot of stuff that had to do with science we got to dissect owl pellets which was pretty fun the best thing was being able to stay up late. The best of all was going late at night and doing experiments with mints, and staring at your partner’s face and your eyes would play a trick on your brain. It was so cool, it was kind of scary, but it was fun. By Bridger
The crowd of people in the small pit was gone. Four people were in the pit while a cloud of dust floated in the air. Bam! Someone was hit by the ball by Mr. Mark, then another person and then another. Everyone was hit until it was just Mr. Mark and me.
“Crap, what was I going to do,” I thought.
The outside people cheered. “Go Melanie!” I heard Sean A. yell.
In that two minutes I was in that pit I was just running around in a circle. The wind blowing in my hair. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. I was still in and I was just running in a circle dodging the ball while it hit the wall with a thud.
Then in that quick second I was hit, the rubber on the ball hit my leg. I was finally out. I laughed, I knew that I worked so hard and yet I only hit the ball three times in that one round.
“Jailbreak!” yelled Mr. Mark. I jumped back in ready for the next round.
The next round was crowded, the dust got thicker above our heads and I smiled this was a game that I could play all the time and I now got to play with all of my friends.
Soon after a few more rounds we heard the sound that called us to come into Uncle Toby’s Story House. We jumped out of the wooden pit and ran over and went to have some gross Guppies for snack.
One thing what we did was Predator and Prey where we got into different group. The groups were different insects, some amphibians and the Red Tailed Hawk which ruled all.
I started as a fly and as I went on I started to respect flies since they have to deal with all of those animals. I was a fly most of the time and I lasted for a long time until we ran into the Red Tailed Hawks which had 20 people in the group.
It was a game but I still learned a lot from it like insects have a lot of eggs since not a lot of them survive and Hawks don’t have that many eggs since, well, they’re on the top.
In all it was fun game and a fun learning experience, I think that it would be a cool if Reed College did a game like that. By Melanie
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we were at Camp Namanu. My favorite part was looking in the microscopes and watching the plankton move around. My partner was Sevyn and we had this weird looking plankton that kept moving around and we couldn’t even see him. So we just gave up and started looking at Mary’s since hers was pretty big and orange. It looked so much like plankton from Spongebob. When we were finished looking at hers since all it did was walk and sit. As the counselor was talking to us Mary was still looking at her plankton when she got all excited and said that it just had a baby. Everyone got excited and thats when another group came in with us and some kids had to give up theirs or go in a group of three. We were still looking at Mary’s plankton and it didn’t just have one baby it gave birth to another and that’s pretty exciting since it was my first time looking at plankton close up in a microscope. By Sandra
At first we were unpacking in the cabin and I tried to get up on the and put the sleeping bag on the bed but each time I tried to put it but it kept on falling on my head and I almost screamed and I finally got it but the my pillow did the same thing until finally I got it up there and I left. We were packing up to leave when I had to put my sleeping bag away and I couldn’t cause there was no way to get it in so I walking to go get help and the mattresses were all on the floor when I slipped on one and then I slipped on another one then I fell face first on the ground. It hurt a lot but I said I was okay then I fell on the bed and fell backwards.
Science
This is the science part of Camp Namanu! My favorite part of the camp Namanu science was owl pellet dissection because I found 2 whole skeletons from it that I kept! We also did the predator and prey which was super fun. How you play is you have a destiny and we have to find a lower ranking and tag him or her so they will be on your team. We also have to find water and keep your hand on it for 10 seconds! By McKela
Twenty-Four into Twenty-Four 
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