Wayzata's Camp Explore is all about food, fishing and fractions

Leaning over the railing of a pontoon boat, 9-year-old Landen Hendrickson felt a tug on his fishing line. He reeled it in and there, flopping around on the hook, was a good-sized bass.

"First day of fishing in a year and I got a bass!" Landen said, as he posed for a photo with the fish before it was tossed back into the lake.

"You got three things going for you," said Loren Simer of Chaska Area Fishing with Friends, a volunteer group that provides fishing opportunities for kids and older adults. "You got the biggest bass, you got the first bass and you got the only bass."

Landen was one of about three dozen fourth- and fifth-graders from throughout the Wayzata School District who boarded three pontoon boats outside the city's depot one recent afternoon for a fishing expedition on Lake Minnetonka.

The kids lined the boats' railings, casting their lines the way they had practiced as the boats glided past lakeshore houses the size of hotels.

"That's like a Harry Potter house!" said 9-year-old Garvin Huang of one particularly large residence.

The outing was the big finale of Camp Explore, a four-week summer enrichment program in the Wayzata School District for students who, according to their teachers, could use an academic boost.

The program, now in its fourth year, runs for four weeks. Mornings are for traditional academic lessons following a district-provided curriculum but often with a fun spin — teaching math via jigsaw puzzles, for example.

"If you've used 14 pieces out of 24, is that better than 20 out of 36?" said Dianne Gasch, a fifth-grade teacher who runs the camp alongside Sue Strom. "By the end of the week, they'd be able to solve those in a flash."

Afternoons are devoted to camps that provide more purely fun activities — beading, robotics, puppetry — although there, too, the teachers weave in some academic lessons.

"We're keeping kids engaged, building background knowledge and exploring possible areas of strength," said Strom, whose job during the school year is teaching small groups of students who struggle with math or reading. "So it really is just good old-fashioned learning in context and playing around with what you're interested in. And clearly they were all interested in fishing."

The group in the boats had signed up for Food, Fishing and Fractions, a program culminating in the field trip to the lake. Most had never fished or taken a boat ride. Many had never even been in downtown Wayzata before that day, Strom said.

"The group of kids that end up going to summer school are really important kids," Gasch said. "They're the kids that we need to focus our energy on."

On Landen's boat, alas, only one other student pulled up something besides seaweed: a wriggling sunfish. Meanwhile, Strom seized every opportunity to work in a math problem.

"What size is the sunfish compared to the bass?" Strom asked the kids. The sunfish was about a third the size of the bass, they decided.

The field trip relied on volunteers from several organizations in addition to members of Fishing With Friends, who brought the boats, tackle and bait. The city of Plymouth provided a bus for the trip to Wayzata. Police officers and firefighters from the Plymouth Public Safety Department rode along to help, and the Wayzata Historical Society opened the Wayzata Depot museum, which the kids toured after fishing.

"None of this would have happened without those groups," Strom said. "Members of the community coming together for all kids and honoring the whole child has always been important and it might be even more important now than ever."

Still another group of volunteers, the Wayzata High School Fishing Team, helped the kids practice casting. Each child was given 10 turns to cast a line to hit a target.

"If you hit the target seven times, what percentage is that?" Strom asked.

As they rode on, Strom also provided commentary about local history. "This is the town that our school district is named for," she said of Wayzata.

She told them that the name "Minnetonka" is formed from Dakota words for Big Water, and that Native Americans would have fished in the same lake, then taken the fish to the top of the hill to dry in the breeze.

"The Pillsbury family used to live over here," Strom said, gesturing toward the mansions. "They made a lot of money — they did well in life."

"Fish!" cried Landon, excited to repeat his early luck. But when he pulled up the line, he found he'd caught something else. "Oh, stupid seaweed."

Ten-year-old River Benson stayed seated for a while, hesitant to grab a pole. "I still might need a little more practice, so I'm not going to fish," he said. He had only hit the target three times during the casting practice, he said.

Strom offered to help. She gave him a pole and managed to pierce a wriggling worm and wrap it around the hook. If River was leery of fishing, she said, she was equally scared of baiting a hook, but was determined to do it anyway.

She stood next to River, helping him cast his line into the water. Then she gave him space to try it on his own. He didn't catch anything but said, "I felt a bite," enunciating the words with careful precision.

"But it unleashed off my hook right when I was going to get it. The fish grabbed [the worm] and went 'Yum, yum, yum!' "

After the boat arrived at the docks, the students had a chance to look around Wayzata's restored train depot and railroad museum and watch a miniature train circle a large elaborate track outside the building.

Then it was time for longtime storyteller Bob Gasch of Cokato, Minn., another volunteer (and teacher Dianne Gasch's husband), to captivate the kids with descriptions of old-time trains. Trains delivered mail, groceries, clothing, tools and oranges, he said, and picked up strawberries and raspberries to take to other cities.

Riding a train meant adventures like going to the dining car, where "you could get breakfast, lunch and supper," Gasch said. Then there was the dome car, with its glass roof offering views in all directions. "The dome cars were my favorite, because you could watch the stars at night."

Trains also delivered cows, pigs and chickens, he said. When the wind blew through those livestock cars, "the restaurants and grocery stores across the street would smell like a barn," Gasch said. "Oh, it was terrible!"

After story time, each student got a turn to pull on a rope and activate a train whistle. Then they boarded the bus and rode back to school.

A fun day, but educational, too, Dianne Gasch said.

"The kids have a more solid understanding of some basic fraction concepts" after the program, she said. "I think they have a better basic understanding. Which to me, as a fifth-grade teacher, is a beautiful thing."

Meanwhile, they've had an adventure, Strom said. "My favorite thing is that when they go back to school in the fall, all the kids have some kind of interesting story to say about what they did this summer."

Katy Read • 612-673-4583