Itty Bitty Briars – June 3-6
The first camp of the 2008 season was Itty Bitty Briars (IBB), a 1.5 hour camp for 11 two to three-year-olds and their favorite adult. Parents were not just observing – they got down in the dirt too, connecting with their kids and learning alongside them. Each day, campers visited a different part of their local environment, using their entire bodies to explore and experience.
We began the week by warming up our body part that we needed to explore nature – eyes, ears, nose, mouth and fingers. The little ones were very brave and reached into mystery bags where the discovered snake skins, feathers, antlers, mushrooms and much more. Outside we played “Eye Spy,” listened for bird sounds to imitate and smelled all the brightly colored flowers. We snacked on things from nature (fruit, veggies and water) and chatted about our favorite things to do in nature. After snack we met the Corn Snake and learned that snakes smell with their tongue, feel with their belly and can’t taste their food.
During “Creepy Crawly” day, campers and parents met our resident millipedes, tarantula and hissing cockroaches. Everyone enjoyed counting the animals’ legs (although we didn’t get much past 10 legs on the millipede), eyes and antenna. Next, we tried an experiment – campers painted a “sugaring” mixture on trees along the trail in hopes of attracting hungry insects. We rolled over logs and found lots of crawling critters that the campers timidly picked up (and sometimes immediately dropped). While we let our “sugaring” solution sit, we snacked on ladybug English Muffins with raisin spots and read “The Very Quiet Cricket.” Campers and parents worked together to create butterfly puppets which we took along as we examined our “sugared” trees. Even though we hadn’t attracted much, a tiny green inch-worm kept the campers fascinated for at least five minutes!
Rain threatened to keep us inside on Wednesday, but it held out long enough for us to explore some different types of shelter around Briar Bush. We read a story about a bear playing hide and seek and then campers went off the trails to play themselves. Everyone chose an animal to act out and had to hide in an appropriate place. We worked together to create a sick and leaf shelter for animals to hide in during the impending rain. When it started to drizzle, we headed back inside for a snack of pretzels, Chex and animal crackers, which many of the campers turned into miniature versions of the shelter they had just created. After snack, we met the box turtle, who brings his home with him, and the rabbit, who has to find or make a shelter. By the end of the day, campers knew that “Everyone Needs a Home” and could distinguish between different types of animal homes.
No Briar Bush camp is complete without a visit to the pond, so that is where we went on Friday. As small as they were, campers used nets to scoop up pond insects, worms, snails and frogs. They did not want to get their hands dirty but loved looking at their critters in magnifying viewers! Everyone learned that frogs really are slimy when they touched a giant green frog caught by one of the parents. After clean up, we snacked on blue jell-o and gummy fish while chatting about our favorite activities from camp. Parents and campers worked together to create “peek-a-boo” pond pictures with turtles, frogs, snails and fish hiding all around. Finally, just because everyone had been asking all week, we took a look at the indoor beehive and felt how warm the bees made the hive. I’d say that the first week of Summer Camp 2008 was a total success!
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