2017 Trips

20 Jun 2017 Updated about 10 months ago

Early Learning Centre Year 6 Trip Report

A trip of two halves, Crazy-lympics and Elephant MasterChef

 

Day 1 Reporting live from Kanchanaburi at the ELC Crazy-Lympic games

It was a clear bright day and the perfect setting for the ELC year 6 Crazy Lympics with the competitors having 10 games lined up to challenge their teamwork, communication, cooperation and fun having skills. With a gold (chocolate) medal and gold (chocolate) bar up for grabs the stakes were high!

Doughnut on a string

Penguin Toes

Apple Bobbing

The students gave their all to the games, with Doughnut on a String, Apple Bobbing and Penguin Toes proving the biggest challenges but also the competitor’s favourites. Cheered on by the spectating Teachers and Barge staff the students successfully completed all games sharing much laughter and camaraderie along the way and were rewarded with a medal presentation ceremony.

 

Day 2

After a succesful day at crazylypics day two saw the students testing their elephant knowledge and culinary skills during a trip to Elephant world where they spent the day helping to care for the rescued elephants.  Learning all about elephants and their diets the students helped to give the morning feed of bananas and watermelons.

Then it was time to walk down to the river to watch the elephants having their daily bath.

Learning elephants only have 6 sets of teeth in their lifetime that they normally lose in their 60’s, the group helped to make some special treats for Tangmo the elderly elephant who needed some extra soft food, sticky rice and pumpkin balls. Testing their masterchef skills chopping the pumpkin and adding it to the rice, it was time to flex those biceps and stir the mixture.

 

Each of the elderly or sick elephants has 1 whole pumpkin and 1 bag of rice made into the sticky rice ball treats per day!

Once cooled students got stuck in, rolling the sticky rice into balls and adding her vitamins and fibre powder before Tangmo arrived for her snack.

Early afternoon meant it was mud bath and play time for the elephants who wallowed and splashed despite the rain and explored the area looking for watermelon treats hidden by the students earlier in the day.

Elephants use mud as a natural suncscreen to protect their sensitive skin and to protect them from insect bites

The final activity of the day was learning more about the diets of elephants, which ranges from grass and sugar cane to an elephants favourtie food- jackfruit!

Having learnt about what it takes to keep an elephant healthy, the group got to pick out the watermelons and wash them in the special purple bath to clean them and then give the elephants their afternoon feeds.  

Carefully selecting the best watermelons with any past their prime being fed to the water buffalo that share the elephants fields

The purple wash bath contains potassium permanganate which helps to remove any chemical residues on the fruit which could make the elephants sick

Once cleaned the fruit is loaded into baskets and measured out ready for each elephants specified dietary needs

The elephant’s dexterous trunk is able to grasp single items such as bananas and larger object like watermelons.

The class from ELC had a great 2 days working together to achieve greatness in the Crazy-lympics and to help care for the elephants at Elephant world.

---