Rainbow Camp

Painting rocks with water.

I collected these lovel rocks on a weekend excursion with my family. Many of them turn beautiful rich colors when wet. The kids were using a lot of descriptive words when working next to each other to describe the colors, textures, and changes taking place.

Drying them off to start again. 

This little boy kept saying "they get painted" when they were wet. I was having a hard time convincing him that he wasn't applying anything except water. :)

Rocks and Rope.

The rope (shoelace) was a  big hit on Friday. They asked me to tie it to their sticks, so they could have fishing poles.  Some kept trying to tie it themselves, but need some more practice.

They realized when the string was wet they could cast at the trees and the rope would wind around the branches. This kept them busy for a long time.

It's a BIG ONE! PULLL!

There was also some dramatic play going on about catching the fish and building campfires. 

While collecting rocks, they noticed this one was especially warm. We talked a little how in "the old days" people used to heat rocks like that up in the winter and put them in their beds to stay warm. They thought was pretty strange. :)

Tying up the warm rock.

"Miss Jessica, now the wind will never blow my rock away"
(she worked on this for a very long time)

Meeting standards

This week we are focusing on Nature Camp. Today I organized a basket to bring with us down to the woods. I had a few ideas for things that we might do.  It wasn't until after we left the playground and I was looking back at the photos I took, that I realized we covered almost all the general Early Childhood Standards, entirely through the kids curiosity and play.

That is what I call a successful day!

Our basket of random stuff that we brought to the woods.

Dramatic and Social Play

 

Fine Motor Skills: Cutting

Early Language and Literacy

This was a first. They loved it!

Creative Arts

Fairy Wands.

Sticky tape arm band.

Science

Math

They collected these. Then they lined them up to count them.

Gross Motor: Physical Fitness

Heard it through the grapevine.

On Tuesday, in Fern Gully, I realized that if I turned the spool on its side that we could bang on it like a drum. I did not expect it to make such a wonderful sound. The video doesn't do it justice. It is almost like a xylophone depending which board you hit. Now we are going to be looking for objects to hook to the sides to bang on.

Using rocks to crush leaves.

The results were exciting. 

In this picture the "drummer" was watching and listening to the "leaf crushers" and trying to bang at the same time as them.
The "leaf crushers" had no idea.
Glad I happened to observe this moment. 

Our fort with grapevines.

Wild Grapes!