Published: October 10, 2008 04:21 pm            

Fourth-graders to receive education outdoors

When Keene Elementary School principal Eric Ribble presented the concept of an “outdoor education camp” to parents of fourth graders at the school’s first PTO meeting of the year, he was prepared for objections.

“I was ready to defend it from all the negative comments,” he said. “All they said was, ‘This sounds like a great opportunity. We’re ready to send our kids.’”

The PTO is sponsoring the event, which will take place from Wednesday through Friday at Glen Lake Camp in Glen Rose. The charge is about $74 per child and the PTO will pay $34 of the amount, in addition to full price for children who are unable to pay.

“The first check we got was for $200,” Ribble said. “The parent said, ‘I want to pay for my child and four others.’ My secretary, Carolyn Buckner, wrote a check to pay for three kiddos. One fourth-grader brought an extra $20 of his own to help pay for somebody else.

“We have the money, so that’s not an issue. But getting that kind of heartfelt response was gratifying.

“We’ll take the bus down Wednesday, spend two nights and three days and come back before school is out on Friday.

“If this year’s camp is successful, we hope to take our fourth-grade and fifth-grade classes next year and make this an annual event.”

Ribble and his teachers brainstormed the camp idea last year.

‘We wanted to move forward,” the second-year principal said. “We’d read articles about other schools that had outdoor education and how it was successful.”

The purpose of the camp is team building.

“We want to build relationships and set goals with these kiddos,” Ribble said. “We’ll do a lot of activities in which they have to work with partners and within a group to be successful. If they work individually, they may not succeed. If they work within a group, they can accomplish tasks.

“We want them to feel like a family and work together like a family. We want them to believe in us and believe that we want to spend the extra time with them to make them feel special. We think we’ll get that reward back academically.”

Most of the activities will take place outdoors ... thus, the name.

“We’ll do a little classwork inside,” Ribble said, “but for the most part, it will be outside. We’ll also have a little recreational time with fishing, canoeing and hiking.”

Fifty-one of the 60 Keene fourth graders will take part.

“Nine kids are not going,” Ribble said. “That’s by choice of the parents. Some of these kids have never spent the night away from home.”

        

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