Day 4 - Beach Day

Updated! Beach Day is a different day. Most days we wake up, eat, work on the project, eat, work on the project, eat, play by the creek or in the playground, go to sleep. Toss in some chicken or goat breaks and that's life at Tinkering School. Wednesday's however look more like, wake up, eat, play on the beach, eat, play on the beach, rest, play on the beach, eat, watch a movie and head to bed.

So much of tinkering school is mental challenges about spatial problems, but beach day lets the mind rest and the body do the work.

The beach calls for us to wander, and the water seems to be whispering "come on, I dare you!"

With a quick assessment to see if the waves are big and scary and dangerous, or just big and scary we decide they are just big and scary and head in.

Some of us head for the big breaks.

Others play in the shallows.

Some dive face first.

Others wait for the fight to come to them.

Some of us aim to ride on top!

Others brandish silly sticks, pretending we might scare the water.

Only to find that the water is very very big and very hard to intimidate.

We have 1000 photos of moments like this; kids getting hit by waves. The photos look painful, but if this post had an audio track it would be full of laughter and screens of joy and excitement.

Another contingency of kids are content to wander the beach and read, basking in freedom, discovery and their own imagination.

Gus is seen here with a shortboard turned boogie board. He spends hours trying to catch waves, falling and missing and paddling, and getting carried down the beach only to reset and try again. It was a model of persistence on unforgiving waves. Eventually josh got in and gave him a few nudges leading to some epic rides.

By the day's end we are all sitting. The sun and the ocean have beat us down. Rest is the best option we have and most of us take it.

With our brains rested and our bodies exhausted we head back for dinner and bedtime. Tomorrow a new deadline appears. The current project must be done by lunch, and a new project will be announced for the last 2 days of camp. We are going to need all the brain power we can get.