The great, giant swing of death!

On the 11^th of March most of 5ER/SL went to Derwent Hill (an activity centre in Keswick). One of the activities included the Big Swing. In order to do the big swing you would need a harness and a helmet. Once kitted up it was time to head to the giant swing. We arrived at the high ropes and were shown what to do. This is what we had to do: 2 of us had to pull on a green rope which helped the person who was having their go climb up the ladder to reach a platform on a tree. When they got to the top they would sit on a wooden seat then they would swinggggg! Once it was the 2^nd persons turn 2 people would have to pull a black rope which would lift the swing itself up to the top of the tree where our team leader (in my case, Zach) would be on the platform waiting to catch the swing. Then the whole process would repeat until everyone had had a turn.

Another activity that afternoon was the high ropes. We used the same equipment, the high ropes was  right next to the giant swing so we just walked round a corner and we were there. We would get into partners and race up a rope course.    

By Shuwen, Year 5

Terrific Team challenge at Derwent Hill!

For this all four teams ,came together after a very exciting day and were given 4 awesome challenges that we had to complete in a team.(as it suggests in the name!) On the first night, we did team challenge outside. In the first activity we had to get the whole team through a tight black rope, this required good listening skills, communication and speed. The second challenge was, the ball and pipe. For this, everyone in your team had one piece of cut in half pipe, then Ms. Hudson rolled a tennis ball down them.  Once the ball had passed you, you had to run to the back of the line. The penultimate activity, was pass the ball. This sounds easy but it’s harder than it sounds. The rules for this were that 2 people had to stand 1metre apart from each other and pass the ball to each other while using the other team members for support. And finally, it was the wooden skis. We had two skis between the team and you had to have one leg on each. This was a good practise of listening to others. In the end our team (team 2 and team Cam. We were the best team) decided on shouting left right left right on each count we would lift up that ski. The winning team was team 5 they “won a warm fuzzy feeling.” said Chris (team 5’s team leader). 

On the second night, we did team challenge again but a little bit differently. Firstly, the team got a sheet with approximately 30 different activities to test the teams’ abilities and we were inside this time. Out of the rain. They were all completely out of the blue and we had limited resources. These tested our range of motor skills such as listening, communication, reading, drawing,  trust and of course TEAMWORK !  Some were as simple as making a paper hat and some were as hard as having to make a 2 minute presentation about teamwork and what you need to achieve it or having to make a poem about your stay at Derwent Hill. For some of them you had to use trust and encouragement. Our group used trust when we were doing a “team talent” for this we lifted up Mabel 5ER (a team member) in the air in a shape of a T. Everyone was very pleased about how it went, and we are sure that the future year 5’s will enjoy it as much as we did.

By Emily 5ER

Courageous Cavers!

5EA and 5AW went on a hike up an enormous mountain with lots of interesting things  including rocks,; we found fool’s gold and quartz. And were very excited! When we first stepped into the cave, we had to turn tour torches straight on because it was very dark. It even dripped with water a bit at the start. But we were still very brave going through. When we got to the end we got to see how dark it was for a real miner working back in the olden days. It was so dark we couldn’t even see our hand! When coming back our leader said, “Who’s brave enough to go back with only a single glow stick?” Some people were a bit too scared but others were ready to go. Luckily they did get out alive and they had lots of fun on the way back looking at the sights.

“Brrr! The water’s so cold!”

“Woah , these are so cool!”

“I love canoeing!”

“Aaah! The wind’s so strong!”

“Wheee!”

Splash!

“We’re all soaking!”

“Look at us!”