While this week has been absolutely exhausting, it has also been absolutely rewarding as well. For this first SOP week we were paired up to co-teach students through a 4 day week full of rigorous team building, empowering evening hikes, and long but worthwhile hikes to the harbor.
One of the most challenging aspects of the week was walking the kids to and from the harbor. My shadow instructor definitely made it seem easy! While we had planned stops along the way and included activities such as "Each One Teach Two," it still was not enough to break up the hikes for the kids. The hike on the way up from the harbor and timing of it definitely did not go well, but gives us more to plan for the future!
An activity that went really well, despite the high energy of the group during the day was "Sneaky Skunk" during our night hike. The kids were super into the hike, a little loud on the way to the learning tree, but once we began the game they definitely shifted their focus toward the game. If I were to change anything it would be to include more games for the students to allow them to get their wiggles out more often. We definitely packed in the schedule, but had difficulty when it came to keeping their focus and I believe different activities could have helped.