Elementary: Week 2
July 17-21
Earth Skills
Day 1:
Today was the first day of Elementary camp week 2! To start off the week, the two groups came up with team names: The Grizzly Legends and The Puppy Friends. After learning about the rules and expectations, it was time for some fun! While one group filled the bird feeders, the other group fed the falcon. After a morning snack, The Grizzly Legends went to hawk field for their hike, and The Puppy Friends went to the log cabin. The groups got to explore the environment, inspecting different plants, and playing with kitchen utensils to create different dishes. After lunch, open exploration took place in the wood chip pile, the campers had the opportunity to climb the piles, climb trees or logs, play with ropes, and more kitchen supplies. Next, we hiked back to the tent for the nature lesson. Campers drew an animal of their choice, then gathered materials from the environment to build the animal a home. After an exciting first day filled with fun, all the campers went home.
Day 2:
To start off day two, campers headed into the woods to work on shelter building where they used twigs, branches, and leaves to create homes for different animals. After shelter building, each group switched their location for hikes from yesterday. The Grizzly Legends headed to the log cabin for their hike, while the Puppy Friends made their way to hawk field to run around a bit. After lunch, open exploration took place in the sugar bush. Open exploration today included playing in a fort, creating a race track and racing one another, laughing at tongue twisters, and finding different bugs. Next we wrapped up the day with an afternoon snack before everyone was picked up!
Day 3:
As an icebreaker for day three, campers worked on their knot tying and untangling skills by linking their arms to one another and trying to undo the tangle without breaking their links. Next, The Grizzly Legends went and fed the owl, while the puppy friends went to help feed the falcon. For today’s nature lesson, campers got to learn about what plants are edible and eat a few including wild raspberries and woodsorrow. The Grizzlys ended their hike at the old tennis courts to play with chalk and weaving. The Puppies went to the mud kitchen to play chef for the rest of the morning and create some fun masterpieces! After lunch, both groups headed to the locus trail for open exploration and got to play with the wagon kitchen supplies and run around! The day concluded with making survival kits, filled with bandaids, fishing hooks, aluminum foil, and more emergency survival gear!
Day 4:
Day four started with our usual animal feedings, one group feeding the owl, and the other filling the bird feeders. For today’s nature lesson, campers got to work on their fire starting skills, building a small fire and making smores! After that fun snack, The Puppy Friends headed to the tennis courts for their afternoon hike, and the Grizzly Legends took their turn in the mud kitchen! After lunch, open exploration took us to the bridges and campers spent lots of time fishing with sticks and exploring the field of tall plants. Today’s nature lesson got cut short due to the weather so campers came inside the Nature Center and got the play. They looked at things with the microeye, color, and played with puppets!
Day 5:
To start our final day here with elementary, we started with a guess the animal game, where campers had an animal taped to their back and had to figure out what it was by asking the other campers questions. Next, we fed all the animals, the Grizzly Legends fed Autumn and filled the bird feeders, and the Puppy Friends fed the birds of prey (owl and falcon). For today’s nature lesson we learned about maps and how to use a compass. After the lesson, we used these skills to aid in our scavenger hunt that led us around the Nature Center! After lunch, the campers got to choose where their open exploration would take place and they decided on the mud kitchen! After all the excitement we needed some quiet time and did some muscle and breathing relaxation exercises. To end the week and take a moment to celebrate our campers, awards were handed out to appreciate the campers individual traits (such as frog finder, kindest camper, camp chef, etc.)!
