Day 25

Start of Animobility this week. 23 new faces this week. Jackson is a repeat from last week, and there are actually 12 kids that are coming from Child's World, a day care, together. We did a lesson about legs and feet this morning and read some stories before snack. Since it's animobility week, we're trying to do some exercises throughout the week to get our bodies moving like the animals do. Today, we did some basic calisthenics. I remember learning these from Mr. Mimick, my P.E. teacher back at Newman Grove Public Schools. Then, the animal presenter brought the ferret and the leopard gecko for the kids to see.

Then we toured the African Boardwalk and fed the giraffes. Now today, we must have had a giraffe with a shorter neck because I had to hold every single camper up so that the giraffe could reach the lettuce, and when I say every single camper,  I mean every single camper.

As we waited in line to feed the giraffes, we started singing "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" like we have every week before giraffe feeding. Well, since Averee whipped out the French version last week, I brought out the Spanish this week.

Lunch ran a little long today, so we didn't do a craft project and worked on our activity books instead. After the 1:00 checkout we were left with five campers. We started by decorating some binoculars, and then reading some books before snack. After snack, Averee took the kids to Kids' Kingdom, and I got some other stuff ready for the week. 

After playing outside for a while, we came back in and talked a little more about Africa, and then danced a little like the Egyptians do (another way of moving around). We also sang some Kumbaya - animal version. For instance... Kumbaya, my frog. Kumbaya.... Kumbaya, my frog. Kumbaya... Kumbaya, my frog. Kumbaya.... Ohhh frog... Kumbaya. :-)

I also spur of the moment found a video of "Rain down in Africa". I found one with some scenes from the Lion King on You Tube, which worked well because we were able to discuss some of the different animals in Africa.

Here's a link to the video if you're interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoHGFRdfBEY

It was 4:00 before I knew it... I stopped at Hy-Vee to grab more bags to prep for future weeks crafts, while I have some time this week. When I got back to my room at Averee's I decided I wanted to get back in the habit of reading a little every day. So, I started reading a couple chapters from Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam, which had been recommended to me by a couple people. I actually read outside on the deck for about an hour, since it's been a pretty nice day. Then, I ate some hot dog macaroni and cheese with some peas for dinner. Averee and I then watched The Illusionist with her dad. I totally should have seen the ending coming, but I didn't haha Good movie. Averee's dad had asked me what sort of things I like to watch on TV, and he mentioned liking sci-fi, and I agreed that's a good category. So, he said I needed to watch The Illusionist sometime, and we ended up just watching it tonight, which was cool.

Another thing I did today that I haven't done in a while was look at things on stumbleupon.com. I like to write down different quotes in a book for inspiration and thoughts about life. Here's one I added today:

I also stumbled upon this webiste: http://dearphotograph.com/
Read at least a couple if you get a chance. I went through all four pages, and I thought they were really cool photos; plus, the little notes tell really cool stories. Wish I was that inventive some days.