Elsternwick PS Year 4 Camp Blog

On the pleasantly warm winter’s morning of June 5th, the Summit welcomed back the legends of Elsternwick Primary School for the first time in two years. It was an absolute joy to see some familiar faces from the teaching team!

The year 4’s were promptly shown to their bungalow accommodation, where they had a chance to unpack and get prepared for the next couple of days. Students were then welcomed into their main space, the Stadium, where they got to meet their coaching team and learn about The Summit's Five Keys that were guaranteed to make sure camp would be one to remember. These keys the coaches challenged students to embrace were:

1. Have Fun

2. Play All In

3. Make Lots of Mistakes

4. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

5. Don’t Go Home Wondering What If

Equipped for a good time, the students made their way down into the park where we helped Jumping Jilly bounce her way into the Olympics! Then we learned from coaches Soph and Chey how to put on a helmet and harness. Then we learned a powerful goal-setting strategy called Target, Stretch, and Super Stretch, that would help us get the most out of any activity. This involved setting the first goal (a target) of one thing you know for sure you can do, then setting the second goal (a stretch) which is something you think you can do, then setting a third goal (a super stretch) which is a massive goal that almost seems unreachable. By breaking overwhelming tasks down using these three goals, we did things over the next couple of days that we didn’t think were possible, and that grew our comfort zones hugely!

Our activities started with a little name-game challenge and a team initiative where we got to know each other and find out as a team what we were all about. Then we got into activities! These activities included: scaling the Rock Wall challenge, soaring across the lake on the Flying Fox, using creativity and artistic skills to create colorful flags and inspiring team chants in Tribe Identity, conquering the darkness in the Cave, and using teamwork and problem-solving to complete obstacles in the Bush Challenge.

Day one wrapped up with learning about a very special camp tradition called writing GMICs, which is all about writing down “Great Moments in Camp” for them to be read out at meal times and acknowledged.

Day two started with a delicious breakfast, then learning about the power of words through an awesome Soul Pancake video. In this video, people on the street wrote down on pieces of paper quotes that meant a lot to them and then stuck them on a wall for people on the streets to walk by and see. Some of the people in the video shared some of the quotes they wrote down, and you could tell by the power of words that was what they lived by. We decided to set our own daily intentions and create our very own wall of words to inspire us throughout the rest of camp, even in the hardest moments. Ready for activities we head down into the park and started with a game to get warmed up! Then the party started with three massive activity rotations.

Lunchtime soon arrived and it was time to sing happy birthday to coach Adam, not once, not twice but three times! And of course, get ready for the Monster Course!

Before the famous Monster Course began, everyone played a game of Jockeys, then split off into teams to practice the chants they had created in the Tribe Identity activity - because they were going to compete in a grand team chant competition.

Echoing through our the park we had:

Team “Balancing Monkeys of Wisdom” chanting:

WE ARE THE BALANCING MONKEYS OF WISDOM

HA HA

POWERED BY BANANAS IN OUR SYSTEM

HA HA

ENERGY FOR US TO BEAT THEM

HA HA

WE CAN RUN WE CAN WALK

WE CAN CLIMB WE CAN TALK

BECAUSE WE ARE THE BALANCING MONKEYS OF WISDOM

Team “Super Summit Spaghetti” chanting

WE ARE YOUNG

WE ARE FREE

WE EAT SPAGHETTI FOR MORNING TEA

WE ARE SUPER

WE ARE DUPER

WE ARE TROOPERS

SUPER SUMMIT SPAGHETTI

SUPER SUMMIT SPAGHETTI

AT THE SUMMIT LETS GET READY FOR THE SUPER SUMMIT SPAGHETTI

#sss

Team “Squirrels” chanting

SQUIRRELS SQUIRRELS

WHAT’S OVER THERE

SQUIRRELS SQUIRRELS

CATCH US IF YOU DARE

SQUIRRELS SQUIRRELS

WHAT’S OVER THERE

SQUIRRELS SQUIRRELS

THE TEAM THAT CARE

SQUIRRELS SQUIRRELS

123

WATCH US CLIMB A REAL BIG TREE

GOOO SQUIRRELS

Team Sonic Amigos with

SONIC

CLAP CLAP CLAP

AMIGOS

CLAP CLAP CLAP

BEAT YOU IN A RACE

STOMP

WITH THE FASTEST PACE

LIGHTNING

And team Juicy Olives with

JUICY JUICY OLIVES

SITTING IN A JAR

ROLLING DOWN THE HILL

FASTER THAN A CAR

JUICY JUICY OLIVES

WATCH OUR JAR SPIN

LOOK OUT TEAMS

WE’RE GOING TO WIN

Teams were chanting, dancing, clapping, and stomping, but ultimately it was team Super Summit Spaghetti that took home the win!

Riled up with team spirit it was time to compete in the Monster Course! This was a team vs team challenge of the extreme! It involved racing around obstacle to obstacle, linking arms with the team, carrying a car tire, problem-solving, perseverance, and most of all RESILIENCE! It turned out that after one spectacular and muddy lap of the Monster Course that the challenge was not over when coaches revealed that the winners were not the team that finished the course the quickest, but the team that improved the most on their SECOND LAP! Teams absolutely crushed it with some impressive improvement times!

Juicy Olives improved by: 6 minutes 41 seconds

Balancing Monkeys of Wisdom improved by: 13 minutes and 8 seconds

Super Summit Spaghetti’s improved by: 14 minutes and 37 seconds

Squirrels improved by: 11 minutes and 40 seconds

Sonic Amigos improved by: 3 minutes and 3 seconds

The third and final day of camp started with talking about ways to think about gratitude because as we discovered, thinking about the things in your life is a guaranteed way to bring some happiness to your day! Feeling ready to smash out two activities more we got stuck into some new challenges! These new rotations included bouncing off the walls in Inflatables, scaling the small tower to touch the sky on Tash’s Ladder, using every ounce of courage on the Leap of Faith, climbing trees like possums on the High Wire, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable with Snakes and Nails!

Although teams were tired and ready to go home, they made sure they didn’t go home wondering what if as they continued to smash goals and grow comfort zones even in the last few hours left at The Summit.

Camp wrapped up with some massive thank you's to the amazing people who made it all happen, finding out some much-awaited results and announcing the MVP voted by every group.

Bush Challenge times:

1. 29.08

2. 38.37

3. 33.07

4. 31.44

5. 52.28

Congratulations to the Values winners:

1. Kenno

2. Huxley

3. Lucus

4. Oli and Alannah

5. Oscar K

On behalf of everybody at The Summit, we would like to say the biggest Thank you to the Elsternwick PS student and teacher legends for a laughter-filled and wonderful camp! All the best for the rest of 2023!!

From camp coaches:

Adam, Calarnee, Sarah, Lina, Sophie, Tiff, Mim, and Sunny