Every day we gain a real appreciation for the beauty of our Northwoods setting, and this summer our Garinim campers are noticing the beautiful details that are easily overlooked. They’ve been collecting and identifying leaves and grasses, and pasting them into their very own journals. Last night, they put this new learning into play as they enjoyed an original version of tag called Garinim Evolution, and had tons of fun running through the grass and around the trees of the lower kikar.
Dressed in green, yellow, red, white, or blue, Garinim were split up by color into areas of the field. The different colors signified different things in nature: seeds, the sun, photosynthesis, water, and bees. Each team could move across the field—but only in one particular way: hopping, crawling, or by making a yoga “tree” pose. The goal of the game was to gather a “seed,” “photosynthesis,” “sun,” “water,” and a “bee” and then run to a far away area of the field in order to grow from seeds to trees. Counselors were the taggers, “pollution,” and tagged campers as they ran to find groups. Once they were tagged, Garinim campers had to fall to the ground and wiggle their hands and feet in the air, gather into tree pose, or solve a human knot. Then they ran back to their original color areas and started over, trying to get to a sectioned off “winner” area across the field.
All of the pieces required to grow from seedlings to plants, which they’ve been exploring in teva (nature activity) came alive in the game. After two rounds of Garinim running, gathering in groups of five, and “growing” into trees, the campers sat down and watched a magnificent sunset together over Lake Buckatabon before heading to bed.
