Author Archives: dordtdiscoverydays
Top 10 best things about DDD
There have been many fun things through out the week. So we decided to try help you remember all the fun activities and things we talked about during Dordt Discovery Days.
10. Devotions at night with our small groups.
9. The Chris and Dustin show every morning.
8. The counselors were pretty cool.
7. The food was great. Breakfast was good, and so was the ice cream machine.
6. The game room has bowling!
5. Hanging out at free time.
4. The classes!
3. Having the freedom to be on our own with other kids without our parents around.
2. The counselor hunt.
And finally the best thing we decided that was the most fun throughout the week is…
1. Making a TON of new friends!
A busy week
You might notice that we haven’t posted a lot of photos of Discovery Days classes on this blog.
However, we’ve been posting many of them directly to our Facebook fanpage. If you’d like a more comprehensive look at a variety of the afternoon classes we were able to get to (we have not been able to go to each classroom, so we apologize if your class is not featured this year), please check out our work at www.facebook.com/discoverydays.
Speed Stacking Competition
You start with two stacks of three and a stack of six in the middle. There is an official timer. If you place both hands on it and take them off, the timer will start. You then start stacking.
You can start to stack on whatever side you want to stack a three tower, a six tower, and another three tower. You then have to take down the towers the same way you stacked them up.
When you take down the last three stack, you take that stack and combine it with the other three stack. From there, you stack two towers of six. You take them down and make one giant stack of all twelve. The top two cups come off, and one is placed open side up and the other is placed open side down. You then make a ten stack.
When that is done, you pick up the two cups that you left out, tap them on the table, and take down the ten pile. You must take down the ten pile so that you end up with two three stacks and a six stack in the middle. You then must place both hands on the timer to stop it.
On Thursday, there was a contest to see who was the fastest. The fastest student was Leah with 18.01 seconds. The next fastest was Ashely with 19.03 seconds. The third place winner was Amelia with 19.12 seconds.
Leah, the cup stacking queen!
Ashley, the second place winner!
The third place winner, Amelia!
Students have been timing themselves all week. Three of the students have quickened their times drastically. The most improved is Katelyn. Second goes to Jessica. The third most improved is Katie.
Katelyn, the most improved!
The second most improved, Jessica!
The third most improved, Katie.
Evening activities
Every evening commuters and residents participate in an activity.
Some of the games we played this week were smaller group activities, swimming, Bigger or Better, and the Counselor hunt.
The winning Bigger or Better team
After the Counselor hunt we all played tug of war. The girls beat the boys for the fourth year in a row!
Tug of war
From what we’ve heard, everybody loves the evening activities. After the activities we all have a snack. It’s a great way to wrap up a long day.
Dorm Life
Friends hanging in a dorm room.
- Hanging in the lounge.
Desks and dressers in a dorm.A mirror with drying towles.
In Dordt Discovery Days there are three different ways you can learn. Day campers come at 9 in the morning and leave at 4 in the afternoon. Commuters come at 9 a.m. and leave at 9 at night. Residents stay on campus all week.
In Covenant Hall, where residents are staying, there are three floors. This year, girls stay on the south side of the dorm, and guys stay on the north. There are 109 double rooms, 6 handicap rooms, and 4 lounges in the building where the students stay. There are two bathrooms per floor. Each bathroom has five showers!
Inside each room, there are 1 or 2 bunk beds, a closet, 2 to 4 dressers, and desks. You and your roomates have to be in your dorms by 10:30 every night with lights out at 11:00 p.m.
Some students sign up with a roommate. That way you know who you will be sharing a room with all week. Others want to meet new people, so they sign up without a roommate. The administrators will pair two girls or two guys (or four if they are staying in a handicap-accesible room) together if they don’t have roommates.
If you don’t sign up with a roommate and absolutely can’t get along with your new roommate, you can find a counselor and tell them you would like to change roommates. They will switch you with someone, or move you into a new room with other people. As far as we know, nobody has had to change roommates.
Every night, a small group of around 10 students will meet with their counselor and talk about their day. They will ask you questions and go over the morning devotions. The groups are all girls or all guys. These groups are a great way to meet new friends and end your day. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Dordt Food
You would probably think food at college is boring and plain but, this college has over 20 kinds of drinks including juice, coffee, and hot chocolate! Dordt also has 2 lines for faster serving and more varieties.
Let’s first talk about how the food tastes. The food tastes actually good. You can choose from different kinds of food and toppings.
Now you are probably wondering what do you do with the tray, glass, and plates. They have a handy conveyor belt to put your tray on and watch it disappear.
The dessert, you may ask, is all about the ice cream. The cool, creamy, delicious ice cream. This is where you can find some of the best college ice cream ever.
Please post your comments and keep viewing! 😀
Cup-stacking
At Dordt Discovery Days, during morning free time, kids have a chance to stack cups. Kids can test their speed or how high they can stack. The cups we used are borrowed from First Reformed Church in Sioux Center. Their cup stacking team was very willing to loan the cups this week. We would like to say thank you to all of those there.
Here are some photos of students stacking cups.
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- Hard at work
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- Almost done
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- More cup stacking
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- The biggest stack this week
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- A group with their stack
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- Speed stacking
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- More speed stacking
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- Kids sarting their stack.
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- Cleaning up
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- All of the cups, stacked
A visit to the Japanese Printmaking class
Here are a few photos we took Tuesday afternoon in the Japanese Printmaking class.
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- The first two steps in the Japanese printing prosess.
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- The second step in the printing process.
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- This is a copy of a finished product. It would have been on a stone; the white parts would be carved out.
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- The first step in the printmaking process
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- A print artist
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- Everyones busy at work
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- A japanease doll found in the studio
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- Ideas for the next project
Tuesday
Today, we hardly had enough time to pack in all of our planned activities. After making all six students administrators of our Discovery Days Facebook page, we spent some time brainstorming about fun stories and blog posts to feature over the rest of the week.
We went to check out Japanese Printmaking and Theater Make-Up Studio. Stay tuned for photos from those classes after we finish creating a gallery.
We also each created our own personal twitter accounts, along with an official DDD account at www.twitter.com/dordtdiscovery.
Welcome to our blog
This blog is a project of the Online Media class at Dordt Discovery Days 2011. We’re going to be going to see different classes during the week and will be letting you know what they’re up to.
DDD Online Media Team
Here are a few fun facts about this year’s Discovery Days:
- This year, we have a record 237 students attending, from 17 different states
- DDD is in its 16th year, and it had 80 students attend in its first year
- There are 111 boys and 126 girls at camp
- There are 81 7th graders, 98 8th graders, and 58 9th graders
- About 200 students are staying in the dorms
- When DDD registration opened online at midnight, there were 110 sign-ups in the first ten minutes
- About half of all students attending have been to DDD in the past
- There are 36 classes being offered this year.
We hope you enjoy reading about our week! 🙂
dordtdiscoverydays 