Fearless teacher, Malia, chose to take on a combined group of Word Play and Cabin Writers this week and enjoyed every minute of it. Malia did a superb job of finding activities that all her campers would enjoy and learn from.

Malia just has two rules for her campers, which she explains to them on the first day:  

    The campers agree that these are fair rules for a summer writing camp and have taken advantage of all the fun, inspirational activities and places they've experienced all week long to comply with Malia's requests.

    On Monday, campers started off the day playing "Two Truths and a Lie" to jumpstart their wild imaginations. In the game, each person conjurs up three facts about themselves: two that are true and one that's a lie. It's the rest of the group's job to guess which is the lie.

 




   After getting to know each other better the group headed to a dock by the river. On the way they carefully examined their surroundings and worked on describing them using their five senses. The campers shared ideas with the group about what they saw, heard, smelled, touched and, at times, tasted. One student thought that the nearby sprinklers sounded "like elephants on a mudslide!" 
    





    A little farther down the Greenbelt, Malia had her campers got up close and personal with a tree (below). Students gazed at, touched, and smelled the green giant while Malia taught them how to use similies as a vehicle for their unique observations. One camper piped up, “The tree smells like guinea pigs three days after they get a bath." Camp is just littered with funny, creative similes!

    Once the campers reached their destination, Malia had them take in the different scenery that the Boise River offers.

They looked at everything from the beautiful cottonwood and catalpa canopy stretching over the dock...

...to the river flowing right in front of (and below) them. 




    After this observation exercise, Malia explained a poetic form called “lune,” a variant of haiku
that focuses on word count rather than syllable count. Campers wrote three-line poems of 3/5/3 words describing things from their list.

    Then it was back to The Cabin where campers wrote "I remember" statements using concrete language to illustrate brief snapshots of memories. One camper remembered “waking up in a hotel room with my sister’s feet in my face.”

    For the last activity of the day, students hung their wonderful memories from the branches of the "Poe-tree" for all to see! Now that numerous groups have added all sorts of poetry to our backyard tree it appears to have leaves of every color of the rainbow. Stop by and check out all the wonderful work these students created for the community!