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CCS’s teambuilding retreat is called WARRIOR CAMP! It is a great time to get out in God’s beautiful creation to make new friends, to strengthen existing friendships, to learn to work together as a House, and to fellowship with classmates. 
After a brief orientation, it was time for the House Induction Ceremony. All 30 of the new inductees were excited…and some a bit nervous…to learn which House they would be joining. Even the current House members and House advisors were anxious to learn who their new lion cubs, wolf pups, and owlets would be, as only Mrs. Haycox and the heads of school knew the how each student was sorted. 
All the House members sat with their House at long tables as the new students sat on the floor in front. House Sapientia was up first to read their origin fable. (To read any of the House fables, click the “House description” tabs in the black menu bar above.)
Mr. Morton read the Sapientia fable as the House Captain and House prefects got the face paint ready for the new inductees.
Then Audacia’s House Captain, Lydia Lawing, was up next to read Audacia’s fable…
…followed by Weston Cregger, the House Captain for House Fides.
Then Mrs. Haycox read each inductee’s name individually to come forward and revealed their new House home!
Audacia’s Captain painted red claw marks on each new member and gave them a large Kit Kat bar! (A sampling of new member pictures are below.)
House Sapientia painted their new owlets with blue and black face paint. 
And House Fides, gave their new wolf pups black face paint, a black/gold beaded necklace, and told them to run through the tunnel to put their “paw print” in the Fides special/sacred book of prints.
After the Induction Ceremony each House went to a separate area of the camp to hold their first official House meeting of the year. In these meetings they educated the new members (and reminded the current members) the purpose and mission of the House System as well as reviewed how points are accrued, and then they brainstormed activities for the coming weeks. They also played some “get to know you” games to help members learn all the new names of members.
House Sapientia’s meeting –
House Audacia’s meeting –
House Fides meeting –
Meetings concluded with an all House member picture with Captain, Prefects, and Advisor up front and center.
Then it was time for the first House Competition of the year! This game focused on the core values of each House. The members circled up, held hands, and had to “pass” a hula hoop around the circle by stepping through it and not letting go of their neighbor’s hands.
As soon as the hula hoop made it around the circle one member ran to a sand pit to try to identify one of their House’s core values and retrieve the flag and run it back to the group.
The winner of the Hunt for Your Core Values game was House Audacia (30points), followed by House Sapientia (20points), and then House Fides (10points).
Then next game was the Warrior Relay (a fan favorite from 2 years ago), with each House dividing its members into Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. First the “ground forces” aka Army had to army crawl through the sand volleyball court collecting ping pong balls with their house color on them.
Then the “Army” jumped on the backs of the members of the “Air Force” with their hands full of ping pong balls for a piggy back ride around the lake to meet up with their “Navy” members (the House Captain and two House Prefects) in a canoe.
At the canoes, each House had to place 21 balls in a specially marked bucket. If the exhausted “Air Force” had all 21 balls then their “Navy” members were allowed to leave the shore.
Fides got off to a quick start followed by Audacia and Sapientia.
Arriving to the shore first was House Fides. The “Marines” had the dirty job of using sponges to fill their buckets with lake water until the balls overflowed the sides of the bucket for the win!
Fides came in 1st place (30 points), with Audacia in 2nd place (20 points), and Sapientia persevering to a respectable 3rd place finish (10 points).
After all this fun and friendly competition, half the kids had free time at the lake while the other half played volleyball, disc golf, tether ball, and gaga ball. Some just decided to take a walk in the woods.
With a yummy taco bar lunch and lots more free time for fun times with friends, the reviews from the students were that they didn’t want the day to end and wished we had been able to do an overnight retreat. (Hopefully we can do that next year!)
Warrior Camp was a wonderful way to jump into the 2017-18 school year!