Magshimim takes on Etgar!

At the end of last week, Magshimim tackled etgar (literally meaning: challenge). Our etgar had three parts to it. We built rafts, participated in a GPS scavenger hunt, and then camped out, which included building tents, having a campfire, and praying in the woods.

The rafting part of the day was awesome. In groups, our chanichim (campers) were given materials to build a raft. They used wooden planks, a huge inner-tube, some recycled water containers, and lots of string! They worked really well in their teams, and had a great time! We had some pretty cool rafts. Not all of them worked as well as our chanichim had hoped, but they kept positive attitudes and had fun throughout the process. To get more materials for the raft, the kids had to go up to the group leader and sing and dance. It was great to watch them sing the first Shabbat song that came to mind in the middle of building a raft!

The GPS scavenger hunt part of the day was fun as well. After warming up by playing some ice-breakers and having some small, friendly competition, our chanichim were in groups once again, searching around camp for notecards. During the competition, we had some all-star campers who were able to recite the alphabet backwards in less than 3 seconds! It was really impressive. The kids enjoyed walking around and figuring out what the clues meant so that they could look for the notecards around camp. And, of course, they got pretty good at using the hand-held GPS!

While at first we had a rain-scare, luckily the bad weather passed in time for us to have a wonderful campout at night. After joining the rest of camp for a wonderful cookout dinner, Magshimim returned to the campsite (in camp) for a campfire. Our chanichim had a great time with this wonderful bonding experience together!