This wasn’t a UL trip by any means, but some BPLers asked for a report of how it went.
I’ve been coaching middle-school competitive math for 5 years now and enjoy challenging kids who would otherwise breeze through math class and, unless they push themselves in music or some academic realm, can coast all the way through high school (which I found not to be the best preparation for college, not having learned to study or do homework).
This year, I’ve got a booster’s club for the math team (how cool is that?) and two of the dads kicked off a snow-camping cabin trip across a frozen lake to a Wildlife Refuge cabin. Five of my “mathletes” came and pulled sleds 1-1/2 miles across the lake:
after school on Friday, arriving at the 16′ x 16′ log cabin which are equipped with wood stoves, bunks, table, benches, splitting maul (and a boat in the summer) and rent for $35/night.
I had them do numerous rounds of math:
After which, we’d review their work and I’d teach new techniques to them. One of the dads is big into cast iron, bonfires and cooking outside which was easy since the weather was so mild (20-30F):
The boys explored the forest around the cabin, marveled at the huge cracks in the lake ice (we’d just had a 7.1 earthquake so one boy and I now have 4 fewer neighbors because their houses blew up and burned down) and played lots of flashlight tag. We’d brought chainsaws to make it a service trip of sorts and the dads cut a lot of wood:
while the boys hauled the rounds to the lakeshore, across a bay in the sleds, and stacked it in the cabin’s woodshed:
I must say, a sled coated with glide wax is a VERY easy way to move 300 pounds of wood, around, even for a 12-year-old. Lots of chess was played and one dad brought high-quality poker chips – I’d never appreciated quite how much that improves the experience.
There was a mandolin along and a student claimed, “I play the violin so I can play a mandolin.” and he was right, he was better than the mandolin’s owner.
When they later competed in the Regional event last weekend, the whole, larger group did great, all four team members advanced to the final top-12 round and the team placed Second (after Anchorage’s academic-magnet school) so they will be going to State Finals next month.
My daughter is in front of me in the blue sleeves. I see all them for 2.5 hours each Thursday after school and also tutor most of them Saturday mornings at the library.
