Wednesday: Team Building and Botany!

Food every day was amazing. Breakfast was pancakes, French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, cereal, milk, and more. After breakfast, we all got to make and pack our own lunches. This was usually a sandwich bar with breads, meat slices, cheese, condiments, fruit, and chip bags.

Every day started with different team-building games! Wednesday team building for our class involved a large wooden seesaw-like table. The goal was for the kids to devise a plan to get all the kids on the platform at once without letting it touch, then they had to sing Happy Birthday twice and then exit without it touching.

They did this three times, each time adding some new rules to make it more challenging. Surprisingly, I think there were only two touches during the entire exercise. The kids all loved it, used great teamwork, and had zero finger-pointing when they failed a few times!

The first animal star of the morning exercise was a cute weasel! He had apparently made the space under the seesaw his temporary home and was not happy to have people uncover it and use it! I sadly was too slow to grab a picture of that guy but he hopped around and then eventually ran off to another hole.

The second animal star of the morning was a moose and her calf grazing up on the hill. If you zoom in, you can see them in the background of the picture above! Up by the tree on top of the hill in the middle. Here is a zoomed-in shot of the moose mom.

The Wednesday theme was Botany! After a short 30-minute bus ride to TSS's other location, we packed up and headed out for some adventure! TSS provided the kids with all the gear they needed

The goal was to learn about the 7 different types of plant ecosystems found in the area and to study a few of them closely. An example of one of the ecosystems was an aspen grove. After hiking into an aspen grove the instructors talked to us about all sorts of aspects of the groves and trees and then got busy with hands-on stuff!

Some of the cool things they had the kids do was rub the trees and scrape them with their fingernails to make observations. The first observation was the white comes off on your hands. It is a powdery coating the trees have to protect their trunks from the strong sun at elevation. The white powder is about the equivalent of a 4 SPF sunblock. Scratching the trees with a finger reveal the green trunk that is actually able to produce energy for it when it loses all its leaves!

We also observed the knots and warts formed by the loss of limbs. The low limbs drop off as they grow since they are no longer able to catch much sun.

Another hands-on thing the kids did was scouting for the edges of the grove. The instructors told us that aspen groves are all a single entity and start and spread from a single tree! They spread out at a rate of 2-4' per year. You can tell the rough age of the grove by finding the edges and seeing how big it is. It also helps you spot the first tree in the grove!

After a few more lessons, we grabbed lunch on the trail. Lunch on the trail anytime would be awesome but for this lunch, we had an amazing view which made the food extra delicious!

After 4 hours in the field, we headed back to the bus for the trip home! The kids got about an hour to relax after getting back before dinner. Dinners were also amazing and included lasagne, brisket, salads, mac and cheese, and other great choices. As part of the team building routine, after each meal, half the kids would do the cleanup on the space! Some would sweep, others would wipe tables, and then they would put the chairs back up on top.

Each evening there was an educational activity meeting. Wednesday's was animal tracking. The kids studied the different types of step patterns animals used. Apparently a long-standing tradition is for Tyson to demonstrate the bounding portion. I have a full video of this in the private photos area but here is a snap shot of a "Bounding Ray".

After this demonstration, the kids all went outside for a tag team race where each kid on the team had to use a different movement style used by animals of the Teton's. Here is an intentionally fuzzy shot of the event (for kid privacy reasons) but a full video is in the private photos area for the parents!

After a long day of hiking and fun, the kids spent the evening playing cards, jenga, and reading and were off to bed without incident by 10PM!

A great first full day!