It can be fun using homemade medals, bookmarks, bunk markers, badges, and nametag decorations for the children in your cabin. Remember to bring enough for everyone, which means you should take at least twelve of each item with you to Outdoor School if you choose to make something special. Student Leaders may choose to take something special for each child that is homemade. However, this is clearly optional and nothing required by Outdoor School.

Bunk Markers
Materials you need: Old magazines, calendars, Sunday comics, construction paper or white paper, glue or paste, masking tape, felt pens. Cut out pictures of animals, forests, mountains or other items of interest out of old magazines and calendars. Take construction paper or plain white paper and cut it into different shapes (clouds, squares, rectangles, etc.). Paste or glue the pictures onto your paper. Leave room to write the child’s name. Bring masking tape and mark each child’s bunk with your bunk markers. This will help you learn each child’s name quickly (even at bedtime when they’re not wearing name tags).

Name Tag Decorations
Do not put anything on the face of your students’ nametags! You will have a chance Thursday night to decorate their tags and then, and only then may you mark on the face of their tags. Student Leaders often bring pens and paint, or beads to decorate tags. If you forget, you can borrow from others, and if you have extra please share!

• Materials Needed: Ribbon, construction paper, pictures, Sunday comics, rubber stamp, tape, peel and stick address labels.
  
• Bring six-inch pieces of ribbon (2 yards or 6 feet = 12 students) to tie around the nametag string to decorate your students’ nametags.
  
• Cut small pieces of paper or construction paper (approximately 1.5 inches for square shapes, or cut circles, triangles, etc.). Cut out small pictures, comic strip characters, or use a rubber stamp to decorate the paper. Take tape and tape your decoration to the nametag string.
  
• Use peel and stick address labels. Decorate them with stickers, small pictures, rubber stamps or comic strip characters. Wrap the label around the nametag string.
  

Bookmarks
Materials you need: Old magazines, pictures, heavy paper, paste, and scissors.
Cut out pictures from an old magazine. Cut two strips of paper the length you wish for your bookmark. Paste the picture at the top of one strip. Then cut around the lower half of the picture. Paste the first strip of paper on top of the second strip, leaving open the place where you cut so that the bottom of the picture will hook over the page. Trim excess paper from the top and sides of the picture.

You can bring things to decorate your cabin. This makes your cabin unique and gives students the idea that you brought things to make the cabin a special place for the week.

1. Rug or mat for wiping shoes before students come in the cabin.
   
2. Posters (PG Rated) or pictures from old calendars to decorate the walls.
   
3. Bring decorating items and let the students decorate. Decorative lights (plug in only when Student Leaders are in the cabin), crepe paper streamers, tape, flags, crayons, paper, scissors, etc.
   

As a show of cabin spirit at Field Day, on Thursday, you might want to arrive on the scene with a unifying theme. Some cabins wear all the same color, others wear their clothes inside out. There are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

Students and student leaders are encouraged to show their cabin unity, and often Student Leaders will bring articles of clothing or use other non-permanent methods of identifying the members of their cabin as members of a team. The time following field study normally taken up by snack is available for cabins to get ready for Field Day. Notice this is a very short amount of time, and cabin unity displays should not become so involved that they delay Field Day.

Inappropriate cabin unity items include, but are not limited to:

• Using pens to mark skin or clothing.
  
• Ripping or tearing clothing.
  
• Hair coloring.
  
• Violent or offensive slogans.
  
• Going without pants, or shirts, etc.
  
• Wearing of live animals.
  

WHAT IS OKAY?

• Wear the same color.
  
• Ask permission to pull some English Ivy and wear it as crowns.
  
• Turn your clothes inside out.
  
• Wear hats.
  
• Make and carry a banner.
  
• Develop a Cabin Cheer.
  
• Wear miss-matched shoes.
  
• Develop a “Group Walk” and use it to get from pace to place during Field Day.
  

There are a number of items you can make at home for your cabin’s Field Day experience. Remember to make enough for all the possible number of students in your cabin (usually no more than 12!) and one more for your Cabin Partner.

Head Bands:
Using either pieces of paper or cloth cut strips 2-3 inches wide and three feet long. In the center of each strip place your symbol or message. You may use paints, inks or the dreaded puffy paint. Remember these may get wet or sweaty, so test them to make sure they won’t run or stain. An easy variation of the Headband is the Crown. Burger King gives away crowns for free! You can turn them inside out and write on them to your hearts content.

Nametag Strings
Bring shoelace, or fabric or some other item that can be comfortably worn and strung through the holes in a nametag.

Sashes
Use fabric such as bed sheets or a similarly easily cut fabric to make strips six inches wide by four feet long. Drape them over each students' left shoulder and safety pin together by their right hip. you can write on them or sew on a patch.

Thrift Store Unity
You’d be amazed how cheaply neckties, similarly colored shirts, hats, or other inexpensive items from thrift stores can become unification emblems!

Nighttime can be a very difficult time for students. Fear of the unknown and sleeping in a different bed combined with anxiety about being away from home create a difficult situation for students. Good thing you’re here for them!

HOLD THE MOOD
The slow, quiet part of campfire gives you a great chance to head back to your cabin and get ready for bed in a quiet, efficient manner. Ask your students to walk back from campfire without using their voices, and stop your line if they become too loud.

SET EXPECTATIONS
Challenge your students to get ready for bed by flashlight. If you keep the overhead lights off you help maintain a mellow mood. Speak softly yourself. If students have to quiet down to hear you they will keep their volume low.

PERSONAL GOODNIGHTS
One of the most effective ways to let your students know you care about them and help them become comfortable at night is to speak to each one of them personally each night. Use a quiet voice.

• Use the student’s name when saying personal good nights. 
  
• Tell them something you like about them, or something positive they contributed to the cabin group.
  
• Make the moment you spend with them count.
  
• Say something different to each student as the others are listening.
  
• Ask students to share one challenging part of their day and the best part of their day.
  

On Sunday, learn each other’s names (make them feel comfortable) DO THIS BEFORE YOU ASSIGN BUNKS. 
Here are some suggestions for getting to know one another:

Name Tag Grab: Form a circle, take off your name tag, put it in the center, go grab a tag and meet the person to whom it belongs.

Mingle: Everyone moves around the room saying, “Mingle” until the leader calls out a number. The players must form groups with the correct number. Players introduce themselves to the other people in their group. Call out numbers until everyone has met everyone else.

Name Game: Form a circle. The first person says his name. The second person says the first person’s name and then his own name. The third person says the first person’s name, the second person’s name and his own name, etc.

Use these games when you are waiting for (flag, meals, field study, recreation, etc.)

The Round Moon: Ask the students to do everything you do. Hold a stick or pencil (in your left hand) and then say, “The moon, the moon, the big round moon. It has two eyes a nose and a mouth.” While you are saying this phrase you are drawing the moon and its’ face with your object in the air. The students will then attempt to do everything that you do, but most students will use their right hand to hold the stick or pencil.

Picnic: Tell the students that you are going on a picnic and they may join you if they know what to bring. For example, say your Outdoor School name is Walrus you might say, “I am going on a picnic and I am going to bring waffles, but not pancakes.” Whatever items you may bring must start with the first letter of your name, the other item does not. The students may come on the picnic when they can figure out this method.

​Johnny Whoops: Ask the group to, “ Do everything I do.” Put one hand forward so the students may see it clearly. Then spread your fingers out. Use your index finger from your other hand and say, “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Whoops, Johnny, Whoops, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.” Each time you say Johnny touch your index finger to the tip of the fingers on the opposite hand. You say “Whoops” as you drag your index finger down the length of the other index finger and up the side of the other thumb, and vice versa when you say it again. When you have gone through all of this then put your hands together, interlocking your fingers and drop them to your waist, do this as inconspicuously as you can. Then ask the students to try. They are successful only if they interlock their fingers at the end.

Cabin calls help the Outdoor School staff make sure all cabins are at campfire. Cabin calls can be a simple phrase to an elaborate rap, cheer, or presentation.

1. __(cabin name)__ is here!
   
2. __(cabin name)__ cabin would like to say, that we are ready in a big, big way!
   
3. SL yells, “Who’s in the house! Kids yell, __(Name of Cabin)__ is in the house! (Ashton M.)
   
4. Spell out the cabin name, each student is a letter, then have everyone say the cabin name together. Have one half of the cabin say the first syllable of the cabin name, the second half the other (if the cabin has more than two syllables, use as many groups as necessary), then say the cabin name together. (Colin “Techno” S.)
   
5. Repeat after me cabin call that corresponds to another campfire song. (Nathan “Mars” S.)
   

Ask a program leader to bring a raccoon circle to your cabin and teach your group a couple of games.