On Thursday May 28th and Friday May 29th, Jordan's school hosted it's annual 4th Grade Rendevouz where the 4th graders get to participate in 2 days of Pioneer type activities.
This 1st picture is from Thursday, Jordan is on the far left.
On Friday, Branda (Jordan's step-mom) and I volunteered as Group Leaders, and were in charge of a group of 7 kids from Jordan's class (including Jordan) and the other 4th grade class. We went through 7 activities that were a lot of fun!
Our group first made Ice Cream the old fashioned way, by rolling a can on the ground that had another can inside with the ice cream ingredients, packed in with ice and rock salt. After only 10 minutes of rolling we had a tasty ice cream treat to enjoy =)
Next we did some "Gold Panning". The kids learned about the main places in Utah where gold has been discovered, and then used pie pans with holes in them to pan for gold! The day before they had made cute little leather pouches to hold their "gold" (gold painted rocks).
After that we went to the pillow stuffing station where the kids stuffed pillows that they had made a few weeks ago. Jordan painted a Utah Raptor on his pillow. After they were stuffed, the kids sewed them up all by themselves.
At the next station the kids made Rain Sticks by putting a long piece of crumpled up tinfoil inside a cardboard tube and adding assorted dried beans and popcorn. Then they decorated them with beads and feathers and drew pictures on the outside of the tubes.
The station all the kids were looking forward to the most was next on the list. Archery! Their teacher Mrs. Holmes had told them all beforehand that it took quite a bit of discussion to get the school board to let them do this at the school, and all of the kids were really glad that it worked out. Jordan didn't end up hitting the bullseye, but he was one of only a few kids in his group to hit the target a few times. He will be taking Archery lessons this summer, so this was a great little taste of things to come =)
After Archery we went to the Hatchet Throwing station. This was definitely the second most looked forward to stop of the day, and another activity that took a lot of discussion for the school board to approve. I even got to give it a try! None of the kids in my group got the hatchet to stick in the wood, but they did learn a valuable lesson about safetly when it comes to handling these tools.
Our last station was candle making, which I unfortunately did not get pictures of. Since the wax was REALLY hot, there was a lot do assist with on my part, so there wasn't any time to snap a picture. The kids took turns dipping a string into the wax and then into water over and over again to make their candles. Jordan's candle turned out great, it was rainbow, with blue on top, green in the middle, and red on the bottom.
After we were done with activities, we had a dutch oven lunch and dessert, and then the kids performed square dancing which they had been practicing over the last 3 months. It was so much fun towatch, and I giggled the entire time because Jordan was taking it sooo seriously!
It was a really fun day, and I was so glad that I volunteered so I could get all these great pictures and be there with them during the activities. Jordan was very happy to have both Branda and I there.
His 4th grade year is really coming to a great close. It has been a lot of HARD work, but they have been rewarded with a lot of really fun activities and field trips in the last few weeks. So far they have gone to a Dance performance at the nearby highschool, the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum, Petco, and Timpanoogas Cave. Next week they will finish the school year with a bowling field trip, swimming field trip and field day at school.
