"Canadian Camping"

Yesterday, after a fun lunch at my school's Fun Lunch (free food + bouncy castles for two whole hours), I helped out at the Best Buddies "Canadian Camping" event!

We played The West Wind blows, Darling If You Love Me, Cat and Mouse with the parachute, Octopus, Link Tag, and went through an obstacle course. 

(see the end of this post to learn how to play)

As for food, we ate the typical camping barbecue of hot dogs and burgers. 



For dessert, we devoured the crown jewel of camp food: Smore's!!

toasted marshmallows and chocolate sandwiched by two graham crackers 

= one seriously delectable treat!

Food included, everything was great!

The buddies and the associate members loved it.

We went back inside and put back the whole cafeteria-full of tables and chairs. With my arm muscles sore from a day's worth of table lifting and body exhausted from helping out with Fun Lunch and Best Buddies, I went home feeling super happy. 

Being involved with the school's great events is the best! And even though next year I won't be in as much clubs as I am this year, and consequently won't be in Best Buddies, I know that I can count on these bunch of students to do a great job for  next year's events.

*Special thanks to Cindy Nguyen for letting me use her amazing photos!

Visit her blog at http://www.cindynguyen.ca/

(she's the one who has inspired me to create this blog!)

The West Wind Blows

Chairs are arranged so that everyone is sitting in a circle, with no spare chairs. One person, without a chair, stands in the middle of the circle and says "The West Wind Blows on anyone..." and can continue to say things like "anyone wearing a blue shirt", "anyone who has a sibling" or "anyone who likes pizza", etc. so that whatever the person in the middle calls out, anyone who fits the description has to get up and find another chair in the circle. The person in the middle also runs to a chair and the last one left without a seat gets to stand in the middle and say "The West Wind Blows on anyone... (fill in the blank)".

Darling If You Love Me
Everyone sits in a circle, with one person in the middle. The person in the middle had three tries to approach someone in the circle and get them to laugh or smile. They go up the the target and say "Darling, if you love me, will you please smile?", while doing something ridiculous to make the person smile. The target, all the while trying to keep a straight face, has to reply "Darling, you know I love you, but I just can't smile." If the target is successful and does not smile, the person in the middle moves on to another person. If the target does smile, then he/she switched with the person in the middle and then goes on to choose someone else to make them smile.

Cat and Mouse

Everyone holds onto the outer edge of the parachute. One or two people take off their shoes and step onto the parachute as the cats. One or more people go get on their hand and knees and crawl under the parachute as the mice. When the game starts everyone holding onto the parachute flaps their arms up and down, making waves in the parachute. The mice crawl around underneath the chute and the cats have to catch them. It's harder than it may sound because it's very easy for the mice to blend into the waves of the parachute.

Octopus

Everyone lines up along one side of the playing field. One or two people stand in the middle as the Octopus. When the Octopus yell out "Octopus" all the people lined up have to run to the other side of the playing field, and avoid getting caught by the Octopus that chase them. If they get caught, they sit down where they've been tagged and become Seaweed. Seaweed are stuck in their spot and can wave around their arms to try to tag the rest of the runners.

Link Tag

Everyone pairs up, linking arms and spaced out from the other pairs in the field. Two people do not pair up. One is the chaser and one is the runner. The runner runs away from the person who chases him/her and can link arms with any of the pairs. Once linked to one of the people in the pair, the runner is safe from the chaser. But the person on the other side of the three-person-link is not. Because links can only have two people, the person on the other side of the link detaches from the link and becomes the runner and the chaser chases him/her instead. If the chaser catches the runner, then the roles switch.