Pirate Camp

 

I got behind on my "summer camp" post.  I will post one a week till they are all caught up.  We did finish them!  Just finding time to blog with three kids home was rather difficult. But eventually the links will be filed all nice and neat, so you can reference them.  If you ever want to do your own pirate camp.

 

The night before I set up a treasure chest, pirate clothes and make a treasure hunt.

 

When they woke up I instuctued them to put on their pirate clothes and follow the directions on the treasure hunt map

 

Each map lead them to another map and each map had a pirate toy sitting on top of it

 

Once they had found all three "treasures"  the note said "Now go play with pirates"

 

On the kitchen table I had all of their pirate toys set up and ready to play with

 

This was our first day of pirate camp!

Science Camp - Can we blow up a balloon

 

This was really cool, but for some reason the pictures I took did not work.  Maybe I did not have the card in the camera.  So you get "re-shoots"

 

I saved beer bottles from when my brother came to visit.  We took an alcasler tablet crunched it up and stuffed in the balloon.  Fill the beer bottle 1/3 with water.

 

 

 

Then you place the balloon on the bottle empty the contents of the balloon into the bottle

 

And whalla!  The balloon blows up.

 

The pictures of there faces were so cute!  But I dont have them.  This is def a fun one!

The life cycle of a frog

Another life cycle we have been watching this summer is the life cycle of a frog.

My mothers coworker brought her some tad poles from her pond.

I added some sticks to make sure the baby frogs had something to sit on once they turned and we feed them LOTS of spinach.  What was cool about this batch was they were at all different stages.  Some had no legs, some had two legs, some had four legs, and some were almost frogs.

The next morning one of our tad poles was a baby frog.

Noah got to free him since Eli released the last butterfly

 Go baby frog, be free!

 So super tiny!

I cant wait for more to cycle!

Secret Agent Man

My step dad picked the boys up a top secret spy kit at the dollar store.  It was super cool for a dollar.  I told my husband it was like a history lesson and a spy kit all in one.  It started with the film camera included in the kit.

"Mom what is film?"

ha ha ha ha!  I guess next your going to ask me what Atari is?

I tried to explaine what it was, then I just said "Its a play camera, stick it in your dress up clothes."  Do they even make film anymore?

So onto our spy activites.  They teach you how to look around a corner, with out being seen.

As you can see above it had a lot of stuff.  Most of it is old school spy things.  So in the even of a black out my kids will know what to do and all the new fangled high tech spies will be out of business. 

Thats right, move over spy kids, the Murdocks are here.

First they teach your kiddos the ever handy inconspicous camera in a paper bag trick.  Because no one would notice that.

They made their own secret agent phones out of juice boxes

Mapped our location

We made secret idenites, which is also a lot like teaching your kid to make a fake ID.  I laughed about this to myself and wondered what I will say when they are 18 and get busted for having an ID that says they are 21.  Oh well we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

 It was so funny. 

me -  "What is your spy name?"

Eli - "Volta"

Me - "Okay, what does Volta do?"

Eli - " He is a Ninja"

Me - "and how old is he?"

Eli - 12

I tried to explaine that spys and ninjas dont tell people thats what they are.  They say they are plumbers or house wifes.  And their secret identy is ninja.

Secret notes with white crayon

finger printing with pencile led

a code wheel

Morse Code

Then we did these secret notes.  I wrote it using the code thing on the left

The Noah decoded it

His face when he read it

Ha! Ha!  We had fun learning how to be spies!

Door Art

At Christmas we made these doors.

For the summer I thought this would be a good hands on activity for them and I would give them full creative range & less guidance than I did with the Christmas doors.  So I covered their doors with white paper and made a border.  ( I asked what color border they wanted & let them attach it with tape)

 Very simple border cut from construction paper

 Very simple border cut from construction paper

This is an ongoing project, when they get bored I ask them to go work on their doors. They color, on them, glue shapes & stickers.  Its been a fun little filler project.

The Magic Monarch

We have spent a lot of time this summer learning about Monach butterflys.  It all started with my mother getting a milkweed plant.  Then we went over to her house and watched the caterpillers eat every leaf on the plant.  Some ran out of leafs before they were fat enough to cooon.  This made my mom sad, so she went out and bought another milkweek plant.

(coocoon in red)

My mother set up an aquairum in her house and she brings the caterpillers in when they are ready to spin their coocons & then the boys set them free.

 Just hatched & drying his wings

 Eli setting him free

 Proud boys

The beautiful Monarch butterfly

  After watching them a while you can predect when they are ready to spin.  So after several phone calls about the poor caterpillars and how they were running out of food, I asked her to buy me some seeds.

 I used milk jugs as my pots and poked holes at the bottom

 The boys helped me fill each container with potting soil

 Opie is always there to give a helping paw

Then we waited until they got bigger.

Here is the problem with Milkweed & Monarchs.  Milkweed is all a Monarch catepiller will eat.  So a Monarch butterfly lays eggs on a plant, the eggs hatch and each caterpiller needs 20 leafs to make it to maturity and cocoon.  Well, you run out of leafs before that happens.  Thus creating my mothers problem of feeling like she needs a never ending supply of milk week.

 

But it is a fun cycle to watch and learn about

This book gives you tons of information & is a good read for learning about the life cycle of the monarch

Block Party

My son Eli wants to get this stuffed animal making kit that he saw at Walmart.  I did not really look at it closely, but he thinks it comes with 15 stuffed animals and stuffing, I really doubt that it does.  Its only $10.00.  Anyways he told his dad last night that he was going to buy this thing and make 100's of stuffed animals.  He has big dreams of this kit and apparently becoming a stuffed animal maker. 

Eli approached me this afternoon and said "Mom can we have a block party?  You can dress up like Cinderella and make balloon animals, I will set up a stuffed animal making station, and Noah will be dressed up in a costume"  My first thought was to say no, then I said "A block party sounds fun, I will help you plan it"  I figured a good oppurtiunity had just presented its self to teach them about doing for others, and being a good host.  So we picked a date.  And then we got to party planning

Me - "Okay I will get out the snow cone machine and the cotton candy machine, and the chocolate fountian.   We can serve hot dogs, chips and fruit.  I can ask gramps to make balloon animals, I can face paint, and Eli you can have your stuffed animal making corner.  Does all this sound good?"

Eli - Yes

Noah - What about the costumes?  I thought we were all wearing costumes?  I really want to dress like a modern warfare person.

Me - Ah yes, no costumes at this block party.  It will be to hot.  BUT you guys can help me print out the flyers & pass them out in a few days. Okay?

We printed up these invites and the kids colored the "Block Party" part.  Then they passed them out.  I had a feeling that not everyone got one they re-passed them out the Friday before.  I figure no one is going to re arrange their schedule to come, so if they can come the Friday before they will come.

The day of the party came and the kids helped me set up the food.
We had our chocolate fountian & fruit, our cotton candy machine & our snow cone machine.  We also served hot dogs and chips

I am always suprised how much fruit gets eaten when you put it on a stick.  I made this cute flag, then I also had three bowls of blue berries and two bowls of strawberries that got eaten as well (I guess chocolate helps too)

The moonwalk arrived & I have to give Moonwalk Mania a plug.  First of all she is the lowest price I have EVER paid for a moon walk rental & the best service.  They are super clean, Robin is super nice and she went ahead and left it over night to give the kids more time to play.  It was really sweet of her.  You can connect with her on facebook here

Then the ice cream truck showed up.  I hate the ice cream truck.  I always tell the kids for the price you pay for one popsical I can get you a gallon of blue bell.  Oh well they saw us out side and hung out on the street for twenty min (no lie) until they decided no one was buying ice cream today & left.

 Hanging out in the shade with our Micah boy

The kids got hot so we pulled out the awesome squirt guns from the dollar store & the kiddy pool.  I said "dont shoot the moonwalk or the grown ups"  and they had a great time

Eating food

Fun!

I think the party was a sucess!  We got to know some neighbors better, the kids learned about all the hard work that goes into a party before the fun starts and everyone had a good time.

Day one - Mural

Well is week 2 Day one of art camp.  This morning we painted murals

I purchased the mural paper at walmart, its 75 ft in a box.  Very nice and much more convenient than making it out to a teacher supply store

I set up the mural paper, paints, paint brushes & then called the kids.  I choose the shadiest area in the yard (we don't have trees)

 After some initial bickering about whoes side was whoms, we got started.

They asked  me to join in

Cleaning brushes and getting more paint.

And then, we needed more paper,

It was HOT, but so fun!

Rex checking out the finished work





Mom...Im Bored

I get so tired of hearing that they are bored, when there is so much to do!!!!!  So I made several activity list; an indoor activity list, an out door activity list, a parent permission activity list, a family activity list, an art activity list and a night time fun activity list.  The indoor and art list work the same way they do at school.  They have a clothes pin with their name and they move it to the activity or "center" then they play there for at least 30 min before moving to the next "center".  They must clean the center before moving.  I have word documents  I will try to upload later :)

 

Family Things to do Click Here For Word Doc

Go to a Ball Game
Geo Catching                                                 

Boat Ride 
Visit A Farm                                                        

Go to A museum
Go Camping                                                             

Go to the Beach 
Summer Reading Program

Board Games
Play Ground

Movie and Pop Corn Night 

Fishing

Feed the Ducks        

              

Indoor activites Click Here for Word Document

Foose ball
Air hockey

 Kitchen pretend play  
Light bright

Super Heros
Army Men

 Light Box     
Legos
 Hot Wheels      
Pirates

 Reading     
Guns

Dinosaurs/Animals
Free Choice

                     

Out door activities - Doc 1 Doc 2 Doc 3

Make a Water Pinata    
Play in the Kid Car Wash

Chalk   
Paint a Mural

Spray Tag        

Water Balloons

Stepping Stones
Play Hole In one (Frisbee pool sponges)

Play with Colored Ice In swimming pool
Play will it sink or Float                         

Sponge Toss (two buckets, car sponge)  
make Tye Die Wall                           

Bubbles                                                       
Frog Hunt             

 Garden                                                                                  
balls                             

  Bikes                                                                   
Make Garden Tralis

Toy Car wash                                                                                                  
Wash Moms Car

 Wash Dogs                                                                                                         

Penny Race

 Treasure Hunt                                                                  
 Free Play

Make Leaf Rubbing                                                                      
Collect Pine Cones

Make a Collage                                                                                              
Build a Fort

Have a Picnic                                                                   
Draw your house from the out side                 

Play soccer                                                                      
Find 10 Different kinds of Flowers

 Go Swimming                                                                    

Fly paper Air Planes

Hide and Seek                                                               
Obstacle Course Day

 Play in the Rain                                                                 

Play In the Mud

Paint Rocks     

Play in Sprinklers

 Hop Scotch        

Parent Permission Things To do Click Here for Word Document

Make Dinner For your Family                                                                  
Bake Cookies                                                                                 

Start A Band                                                                                  
Lemonade Stand                                        

Make A Movie                                                                                            
Tie- Die t-shirts                                         

Pillow Fight                                                                                                 
Make a Volcano                                                                

Dance Party       

              

Art Station things to do: Click here for word document

Googlie eye craft                                                                     
Pipe cleaner fun

 Silly puddy                                                               
Foam crafts

 Play dou                                                                                   

  Paint

 Cut and glue                                                                              

Moon Sand

Coloring                                                                                 

Construction Paper
 Gemstone craft                                                                   

Stick craft

    

Night Time Fun

Smores                                                                                                              
 Flash Light Tag

Star Gazing                                                                                        
Make Shadow Puppets