Having the honour to be the first batch of students and teachers of the FIRST Fairview Educational Camp at Port Dickson Eduresort, everyone seemed excited and nervous from the day we received the first circular of this trip. Students were asking about it every week (nearly every day) until the last hour we were on the van travelling to the camp site. Some has even packed their luggage one week before departure!
Finally, on 8th November, after travelling almost 6 hours on the road, the Ipoh students reached Eduresort at 12:45pm.
Lunch was served and students are advised to appreciate food and finish all food in their plate, returning the plates to respective bins afterwards. They started with a short briefing by the camp leader Ms Kavita. After that, students went to their respective homeroom lessons. Learning about trade in a new environment and with new friends, made these kids excited.
After homeroom lessons, time for outdoor activities! Awesome platoon leaders brought them around the neighbourhood for treasure orienteering – hiding treasures and drawing treasure map for the opposition team. Some platoons went for obstacle challenge – crawling, jumping, hoping, cheering, sweating, getting dirty and laughing happily. A great chance to see so much cooperative team work and enthusiasm going on in these kids, which we seldom see in the usual classroom!
Every night after shower and dinner, students will be having ATL sessions, learning more about different skills. They enjoyed creating logo for each skill and confidently presenting them to their peers; they learn OPV (Other People’s View) on a discussable topic, understanding and respecting other people’s opinion coming from different background and experiences. They learned how to formulate questions from an answer.
Another session which was exciting was the basket weaving activity. It aims to develop the fine motor skills of the students. All students were highly engaged in the process of creating their own basket. At the end of the session, creativity unleased! Baskets became plates, hats, saucers, bowls, etc. in different sizes and functions. It was indeed a fruitful session.
Not forgetting about the excursions in this camp. Students enjoyed the visit to the Lukut Museum and was committed in gathering more facts about their unit on trading. A lot of artefacts were displayed in the museum including the ancient types of money in alligator and fish patterns. Besides museum, the students got the chance to learn how to mend fish nets.
Overall, kids were excited. Some missed home for the first day but adapted after talking to new friends who showed empathy and comforted their young souls. They woke up in the morning tidying their beds. Some of them managed to experience sleeping in the tent outdoor when blessed with good weather. Morning exercise and marching fun never fails to capture these young hearts. Being a thinker, they created towers and parachutes for eggs challenge! Although some eggs were broken, but you can be sure that they have captured their Eureka moments. Curiosity drives the success.
Not forgetting this historical moment when the students got to know that Donald Trump won the election as the President of the States. Thanks to the result of this latest news, we had role plays on trading with casts such as Ronald Rump and Cillary Blinkton. Who dares to doubt our children’s international-mindedness?!
Time to go back after a compact 4D3N camp. Everyone started to miss home badly but feeling so sad to leave their platoon leaders and fellow new friends. They came to the camp packed with expectations, and went home with baggage of lifetime memories and solid improvement.
Every child deserves a learning opportunity like this, don’t they?
[supsystic-gallery id=’2′]