Day 15

First day of Camp! Despite some rain, a pretty darn good day I do believe. This week is the first "Prehistoric Pals" camp we will be leading this summer. Got up early this morning and was at the zoo by 7:30am to finish getting things ready. First got them checked in, learned names, and did a little lesson (today's was on different dinosaur time periods). We had 23 campers in our group starting today.Then, we had a little downtime, and I made up a song on the fly reviewing some of the things we learned. As I was sitting there listening to Averee's lesson, I had the "I have an aunt" from VBS days in my head, and I came up with some actions and just went with it. I know at first Daniela was like what song is this? hahaha. It worked out though. We flapped our wings like pterodactyls, stomped like tyranosaurus rex, and made big horns like triceratops. 

Next, we had goldfish crackers for snack followed by some animal presenters that came and showed the kids a millipede and a chicken. They all got to pet both of the animals. We will normally have some sort of animal presentation each day of camp from the education department.

Then, we took a little tour through the dinosaur exhibit in the zoo. The kids also had fun running through the maze that's set up outside the dino exhibit, and taking photos in the dino cutouts.

 
Then, it was time to decorate our memory activity books and eat lunch. After lunch, it was craft time, which was painting bags today.

We split the kids up into two different groups to work on painting. So, Daniela read a couple stories to the kids that weren't painting.

10 of our campers were picked up by their parents at 1:00 because they were only signed up for the half day camp option. Then came the rain and thunderstorms, so we were cooped up in our classroom for a while. We played a couple different games, did some coloring, and read some books. At first, I thought it was going to turn out to be one long afternoon, but it started picking up. The kids were a little more rowdy this afternoon, but nothing unmanageable. haha I love being around kids and getting to do fun but sometimes silly actions cause the kids join right in. We went on a second trip to the dino exhibit after the rain let up and learned more about each of the dinosaurs there. Had popsicles for afternoon snack, and then one more game before it was time to head for checkout.

Great first day of camp! The day flew by, the kids were enjoying themselves, and I was too. They were a really smart group, too. I almost didn't know half of the details they knew about some of the dinosaurs. They wore me out too (but in a good way), so I think I will be going to bed early :-)