Posts Tagged ‘fish observatory’

Juniors finish up Nature’s Swimmers!

Friday, August 7th, 2009

The Juniors finished off our week with a fun-filled day! We began the morning with some high-energy songs, including “The Hippo Song,” “Little Green Frog Song,” and “Little Red Wagon,” and then transitioned into a fun game of “What Time is It, Mr. Dolphin?” The kids really enjoyed playing, so we played that game for awhile and then headed inside for some water, a snack, and craft time. We made the world’s coolest crawdad masks–ask to see your camper’s! After making our masks and laying them out to dry, we got all packed up and headed out to the Boulder Creek Fish Observatory.

We ate lunch at the Observatory, then had fun looking for and feeding the fish! We saw an “underwater beaver dam” and a sleeping grasshopper. After feeding the fish, we all grabbed our backpacks and headed back to Base Camp. The hike back was pretty long for everyone, but most of the campers did a great job of keeping going. We had some rests for water along the way, and when we made it back to Base Camp, everyone was happy to have some quiet time!

For quiet time, we relaxed and read stories, and then transitioned into some afternoon group time. We made some awesome puzzle pieces–each camper got a puzzle piece to color  and take home, and we talked about how the puzzle pieces represent how we all, as individuals, are different, but how we can come together to make a really cool camp. After doing our puzzle pieces, we headed outside for some delicious gorp, ordered by the Blue-Green Dolphins!

After snack, we closed the day with a little bit of free play and some circle time. Each camper shared their rose and thorn for the day and the whole week, and we said goodbye to those campers not coming back next week. Then we sang all of our favorite afternoon songs, and ended with the old classic, “On Top of Spaghetti.” It was pretty exciting that Director Tommy came out and sang afternoon songs with us and played his guitar! We finished the day by concluding that everyone had had an amazing week.

All in all, we had a blast learning all about nature’s swimmers this week, and we look forward to talking about the “Active Earth” next week!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in MDC Junior 2009 | Comments Off

Pool Day in Junior!

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

We began our Pool Day with some free play, and transitioned into some great songs and a water relay. We sang the “Swimming Song” and “Little Green Frog,” and then split into two teams for our water relay. Each team had a basin full of water and a sponge, and an empty basin positioned across the yard. Each team, using the sponge, had to transfer their water from the full basin to the empty one! It was very exciting, and needless to say, the relay ended in a total and complete tie!

After our game, we headed inside to drink some water and make some pipe cleaner fish sculptures. Everyone was really pumped to make all sorts of different pipe cleaner creations–ask to see your camper’s! After our group time, we got all packed up and headed to Spruce Pool for our pool day. Directors Tim and Tommy were nice enough to drive our stuff to the pool, so we got to walk to the pool carrying only our water bottles! Once at the pool, we ate lunch, got all sunscreened, and jumped right in! Everyone had an awesome time playing at the pool–the ducky slide was a hit, as was the long ramp into the main kids pool.

After swimming, we changed into our regular clothes, gave our bags to Director Tim, and headed back to Base Camp. Walking with just our water bottles was pretty fun–we got to stop and take some drinks in lots of different shady spots. Once back at Base Camp, we headed inside for some quiet time. We read some stories and rested a bit before heading back outside for our surprise snack. It was nice cold apple slices! Delicious! All of the kids enjoyed the special pool day snack, and after snack we had some free play. Everyone was pretty tired, so there were more tears than usual, although they all dried up pretty quickly. We had a good time playing with our pipe cleaners, though!

We closed the day with some circle time–we did our rose and thorn for the day and then said goodbye to those members of our group who won’t be joining us tomorrow. We finished up with some fun afternoon songs, including the “Shark Song,” “Bumblebee Tuna,” the “Canoe Song,” and, of course, “On Top of Spaghetti.” We had a pretty great day at the pool–for our last day of camp, we’re heading to the fish observatory to see the fish and we’ll also be making crawdad masks! Get ready for an awesome last day of the session!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in MDC Junior 2009 | Comments Off

Juniors Head to Fish Observatory

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Today was pretty rainy and cold, as everyone noticed (and talked about a lot)! So instead of going swimming, we decided to change our day around a bit. We started out with some fun songs, including “The Alligator is My Friend” and “Head and Shoulders.” Then, we played with a big bag full of balloons! It was exciting to see how long we could keep the bag up in the air without its touching the ground. Then, we split into groups and made paper-bag snake puppets! The campers really got into making them–ask your camper to make their snake talk!

After working on our snakes, we got packed up and headed out for our Rain Walk. We got to walk all the way to the Fish Observatory (28th and Arapahoe, by Boulder Creek). It was really cool to see all the different things brought out by the rain–we saw worms, and the rain made it easier to see spiderwebs, too. After eating lunch under an awning by the creek, we fed the fish and looked through the obervatory’s windows for awhile. Then, we headed back to Base Camp, through the rain!

Back at Base Camp, we took off all our wet things and settled down for some quiet time. We read “Star-Bellied Sneetches” and also “Where the Wild Things Are.” Everyone was pretty tired after our big hike! We then split up into groups for some afternoon group time–the Thunderheads mixed their gorp, the Chicken Flowers made a beautiful group picture, and the Pink Ponies finished up their snakes.

We ate snack inside (the delicious gorp mixed by the Thunderheads!) and then had some free play with our snakes. The campers had a great time introducing their snakes to each other and having their snakes eat various things around the room! We finished up the day outside–we used our snakes to talk about our favorite activity of the day, and then sang “On Top of Spaghetti” with a lot of extra “ssss”es! Tomorrow, we’re going bug catching and possibly making frog hats; it should be a really exciting end to our Reptiles week!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in MDC Junior 2009, What's Happening! | Comments Off

Last Day of Crazy Critters!

Friday, July 25th, 2008

Today was the last day of camp for MDC Junior’s Crazy Critter week! Today was also a day full of games and adventures. The day started off with songs and then an obstacle course in which each camper ran through very well. Afterwards the campers played a Buzzing Bee game and tried to catch campers by buzzing and turning people into bees! Then the campers and counselors left for their hike on Boulder Creek.

The hike went all the way from the Living School to the Fish Observatory where the campers ate lunch and were entertained by the local teenagers diving into the deep water. Afterwards on the way back to the school the campers went bug catching and caught a grasshopper and many other exciting bugs. The last activity of the day was making The Book in which campers each made a page with their pictures and names and their pages will go into a big book. In future years at MDC the campers can look back and see themselves! The session ended with many songs requested by the kids and each camper taking home an MDC sticker.

Tags: ,
Posted in MDC Junior Boulder Camp Days '08 | Comments Off