Big Week, a week that sets Monmouth Academy apart from many other schools. A week where the four classes all do different activities. The Freshmen were away at Acadia National Park for M.O.B.Y. (My Own Back Yard). The Sophomores were away at Camp Androscoggin for Sophomore Awareness. The Seniors traveled to different colleges around the area, and that leaves my class, the Juniors.

The Juniors went to Camp Mechawana for Junior Leadership. I know the title’s not too original, but it sums the week up perfectly. Junior Leadership gives our class a chance to bond away from the halls of our school, while getting ready for Wednesday, the day when the third and fourth graders come from the Henry L. Cottrell School to spend some time with us and, of course, have a lot of fun.

Monday, the first day, we all piled into the mess hall not knowing much about what was going on. After our donuts and juice, along with the introductions of the teachers who would be advising our week, we were split up into four groups: Green and Red, who were to go down to the field, and Blue and Yellow who would go to the waterfront.

I was in the Green group; our advisors were Ms. Mank, a music teacher to all three of the Monmouth Schools, and Mrs. Taylor, an English teacher at Monmouth Academy. The first thing that our leaders explained for us was the Full Value Contract. There are five characteristics to the Full Value Contract, they were: best, safe, fair, kind, and fun. They wanted us to always try our best, everything that we did needed to be safe, everything should be fair, meaning that everyone should have a turn if we are playing a game, we always needed to be kind to each other, and most importantly we needed to have fun during this week.

We started off with some ice breaker games that we would first teach the kids. There were five ice breakers in all: Name Juggle, People to People, Peek a Who, Mergers, and Morphing. The ice breakers were a chance to get the kids together in a group and let them get used to being with the Juniors and each other out of a classroom.

After we were finished with the ice breakers ,we started one of the “big games.” We played Key punch. During Key Punch there are 30 numbers contained inside a circle. You and your team have to hit all of the numbers in order as fast as possible, but only one member of the team can be inside the circle at one time. This is a race between the teams.

After lunch we continued with our second “big game,” Stepping Stones. Stepping Stones is a pretty basic game. You and your group have to get across a roped off area without stepping off your tiles because under you is molten hot lava, but you only get the amount of tiles that you have people in your group and if you fall off the tile you have to start over. This ended our day; we got on the bus and headed back to Monmouth Academy.

Tuesday, day two of Junior Leadership, we finished up with our two last “big games.” The first one was Sticky Buddies, where you and a partner are taped together and have to make your way through an obstacle course; this can be made more difficult by taping legs together or having one person blindfolded.

The next and final game is Pipe Lines. During Pipe Lines everyone has to have a cut piece of pipe, and through that the group has to get a marble from one point to another without letting the marble fall, touching pipes, or touching the marble with hands. It sounds like it would be difficult, but by keeping the marble going at a slow pace it’s very easy to make it from one point to another.

At this point we were split into four smaller groups: circles, stars, squares and triangles. We were split into the smaller groups so that each group could teach a game and have a smaller set of young kids.

The rest of the day we got into our small groups and we decided how we were going to split things up and handle it when the third graders came.

Wednesday, the third day was a very simple day. The third and fourth graders arrived about an hour after we got to the camp. The fourth graders went to the waterfront with the Blue and Yellow groups, and the 3rd graders stayed on the field with the Green and Red groups. We first started with the ice breakers. After we had time to play every activity we began playing the “big games.” Two games were done and then we ate lunch. After lunch we came back and played the last two games with the third graders.

During the whole day one thing was evident with the kids, they were having so much fun. I can’t even emphasize how much fun they had on that day. Not only do they look up to us, but they also just like to be able to have a day where they are not stuck in a classroom and they can run around and yell.

Thursday, day four,was the day of relaxing. We talked about the kids, and how much fun they had, and how much fun we had with them. Then, for the rest of the day we played games ourselves. We played the games the third and fourth graders had played, and then we got to either go canoeing, play basketball, football, or board games. It was the perfect end to a fun week.

Overall, Junior Leadership was a great experience. Spending time with the Cottrell School kids was very fun. We had people in our group who didn’t really like kids, or rather they didn’t spend that much time with them, and at the end of the day they were giving kids piggy back rides and carrying them around everywhere.