Day 12

FABULOUS day! I kinda felt more so like I belonged at the zoo today in a sense. Before, often times other staff would kinda look at us interns like "who are they?". Today, they were saying hello, and I was saying hello, and it felt good. I know that sounds kinda dumb, but it put me in a really good mood today. Then, the day just flew by.

My partner and I worked on a couple projects that took us quite a bit of time. First, we made some carrying bags out of brown grocery bags that our kids will be painting on most Mondays. We didn't decorate one, so it looks pretty bland right now, but you can at least see the general idea.

The other major project we worked on today was some decorations for our classroom. We colored some animal abc pictures and a few other animals that we're going to laminate and hang up on the walls.

One of our big craft supply orders came in today, so got to sort through that. Also, Daniela went and picked up the snacks for our first week of camp, which we helped haul in and store.

All in all, I had a FANTASTIC day and feel really good. Two more prep days, a weekend, and then Summer Safari camp here I come!

Also, had a nice little phone conversation with my good friend Karena. Here's a photo of the two of us from our most recent semester:

Day 11

When we got there at 9 this morning, there were so many cars in the parking lot. At first, I was thinking what in the world is going on, but then I remembered from the Staff meeting the day before that there was a radio thing going on. A radio show was there from 5-9 and it brought in the people. It was crazt to see so many people walking around the zoo already, when it doesn't normally open until 10.

Worked on supply lists, especially what we need for our first week of camp. A few went with Daniela shopping today for some of the supplies. McKenzie's birthday was on Sunday, and she brought some of her birthday cake today, which was really good, and funfetti at that - one of my favorites.

The first craft project that I worked on today was a snake shaker."S" for snake... get it? haha There's rice inside the tube, so I think after we make them one day, we might use them to make music and dance a bit.

This was a pretty simple dinosaur made from paper plates and fun to color. I named it the Jessicasaurus for fun. The legs are even movable.

This is a dinosaur scene made out of crumpled brown paper bag, which kind of adds some texture and dimension to the piece.

One other major craft project we plan on incorporating is some sort of bags. We can't afford to have canvas bags for the campers to paint every week, so I came up with an idea to make our own bag with handles from a brown paper grocery bag. I stopped at Hy-Vee on my way home to pick some up. I've got enough for the first week, and I will probably test run one tomorrow.

Day 10

Officially one week til the campers start coming. I cannot wait! Summer's gonna really start flying by I think when that day rolls around. Finished some detailing of some lesson plans today and a few of the activity books, which I really enjoy making (REALLY, and fortunately my partner doesn't so much haha).

We moved around from room to room this morning. We'd get to one, settle in and start working to be stopped by someone saying the room would be used soon. At one point, we spent a while in what is known as the Waterfall Room in the Discovery Center, which was actually a nice change of scenery. Although, it felt like it was freezing in there compared to the oven that it was outside today. Here's a few shots of the big windows that we were able to glance out as we worked. You can see right into the main exhibit area of the Discovery Center. Kinda reminds me of the Lieds Jungle at the Henry Doorly Zoo...

We attended an all staff meeting at 1:00 this afternoon, where we introduced ourselves. Then, they went around to the various departments and reported on some current happenings in each area, which was interesting.

I put together one little craft today that ties in with talks about rainforests... if you can't tell, it's a walking stick, which is an insect :-) Plus, I made him with a real stick for a body.

 

We were told today that one of our supervisors broke her tibia this morning, which is a bone in the bottom portion of your leg. Hope she recovers well. I had my fair share of broken arms when I was younger, but I've never had to use crutches.

Also, in my thoughts today were my Great Grandma Boschen, who passed away last Thursday night. She was 104 years old and one well respected woman who was able to tell us so many great stories about her life. Love you Grandma!

Here's a photo of my Great Grandma with my younger brother Sheldon when he was just a baby that I found.

Speaking of my brother... he actually flew to North Carolina today, where he will be shingling some roofs for a couple of weeks. This was his first commercial flight. When I talked to him the other day, he sounded pretty excited to go, and I told him he better take photos so I can see it. He hasn't really traveled much outside of the Midwest... so maybe he'll gain a knack for traveling like I have, and we'll be world travel buddies. A girl can dream, right?

This is one of my favorite photos of Sheldon and I:

Final note for today... it was taco night at home with Jeremy, Kari, and the girls. Woo! Then, after while I found myself doing a Zumba workout. I've really missed Zumba class, and this felt pretty good today. I always enjoy changing up my exercise routine every now and then, as well.

Weekend with the Renz's

So, I thought it would be fun just to blog about some of the things I'm doing on the weekend. This weekend, I spent a lot of time with Jeremy, Kari, Hannah, and Rylee.

Saturday, Jeremy took us out on his boat on Saylorville Lake. It was a perfect day to be on the boat - calm waters, warm, but not the pounding sun and wasn't too busy. We spent a couple hours out on the lake. I love being on the lake. I've had some really great times with a few of my friends out on the lake. Then, I went and did a little explorative shopping. I checked out a few little shops in historic uptown of Ankeny, the Sportsman's Warehouse on Oralabor Rd, and the Funky Zebras fashion boutique for fun. Ended up my shopping trip with a score of a necklace and dress. Then, we just chilled out on the driveway with some of the neighbors, which was fun.Saturday night, Jeremy whipped out the traeger and grilled us some BBQ ribs and chicken wings, both very good. Also, got a phone call from my good friend Cassie. It was really great chatting with one of my college friends for a while.

Here's a photo of Cassie and I from our most recent semester at school:

Sunday, we all went to the Cascade Falls Water Park for a couple hours. The girls had fun in the kiddy area. We all floated down the Lazy River, and I went down a few of the big kid slides all by myself ;-) I even went down the toilet bowl, which was interesting. Figured I might as well try it since it was there. Jeremy grilled burgers, and Kari made corn and macaroni casserole. Then, we finished up the weekend by going to their favorite ice cream place - Van Dee's in Johnston. Oh my goodness! May just be some of the best ice cream I've ever had. I had a a good ole vanilla ice cream cone. I didn't have my camera with me, so next time I'm there I'll take a picture of it. They serve the cones with two eyeballs. It's sorta their signature. The girls were telling me about these eyeballs on our way there. It was a deliciously whipped cone and a fun little place to be. I'm going back one of these days.

Overall a mighty fine weekend in the life of Jessica Boschen.

Day 9

More camp prep on Friday. I started to come up with some ideas on how to work cultural lessons and activities into our World Travelers camp, which I enjoyed.

A few friends from church back home were passing through Des Moines, and they stopped by to see me. It was nice for Pat and Diane to stop by and tell them a little about what I've been up to.

So, here comes one of those in as "it's a small world" stories... I was walking to the classroom to put some books back, and I heard a family trying to figure out which way to get to the lions. I walked up to them and told them they'd have to walk around the other way because of construction. They thanked me and asked if I worked here. Yes, I'm actually a summer intern :-) I happened to be wearing my Morningside Swimming shirt today, and the lady saw and asked if I go to Morningside College. Yep. She said her brothers went there and played football. She said one has some school records and was inducted in the hall of fame. I asked for the name and said I'd have to go look at that stuff now... Crazy. Then, I told them all to have a great day. It's a small world.

It was a real warm out all day. The tortoises even huddled up by the tree under some shade for the day.

Kari made us her favorite meal to cook - chicken, asparagus with bacon, some rice with sauce and onions, and fruit. Mmmmmm. Since it had been a warm beautiful day out, we hung out on the deck and in the backyard for most of the night. We even got to roast some marshmallows and make s'mores tonight.... They were delicious.

Day 8

Worked in the Oasis Room again today. I started on my schedule for the World Travelers camp week, which is right up my alley in a way. I think I might share some of my photos from Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands for parts of lessons that week.

Also tried out a few crafts again today. I used some fingerpaint on this butterfly/dragonfly clothespin.

I also went through the bookcase in the classroom where the preschool camp will be held for ideas and possibilities for story time during camp.

I ran across this next book, and I totally remember reading it as a kid and loving it =) Oh, Sammy the Seal.

We did end up thinking of lots of cool little things and projects we could use in our time with the kids. I found another book where the illustrator made animals out of heart shapes. I thought it might be a fun activity to show the kids how to draw different animals like that. So, I tried in my notebook.

Brought home my camp t-shirts today. I will be wearing this every day at camp.

Left the zoo at about 4:00 today, and I decided to go check out Easter Lake Park that I see the sign for on the bypass everyday on my drive to the zoo. It was a nice little lake. There was a strong cool breeze blowing as I stood along the shoreline. There were also quite a few geese hanging out there.

Hannah and Rylee gussied up tnight in their dresses from Jenny's wedding for fun, which was cute.

 
Then, after dinner I went on a hike down by Saylorville Lake. I love hiking on dirt in the wood trails! Plus, the view of the water every now and then was nice as the trail meandered. At one point, I caught orange sunlight on the water, which looked pretty cool...

I circled back around at one point and noticed that the light was no longer peeking through a cloud like it had been. Crazy how I happened to catch it at just the right time before.

Here's some comparison shots:
 

Day 7

Most days, we've been spending a lot of time just in the conference room of the administrative building at the zoo working on lesson plans and such. Today, the conference room was taken over mostly all day for meetings. So, we headed over to the Discovery Center to make camp for the day in the Oasis, a.k.a. the Macaw, room. This is the room where the1st and 2nd grade camp will hold some of their camp activities.

It was actually really nice to change scenery for a while. This room is also known as the Macaw Room because the Scarlet Macaw exhibit is right around the corner. It was quite entertaining overhearing things people would say as they walked by the exhibit, especially children. For example, "polly want a cracker" was heard more than once.

I took a photo of one of the Scarlet Macaw's today to help remind me of some of those zoogoers we oveheard and the things they said:

Today really flew by... before we knew it was 4:30 in the afternoon. We got a lot accomplished today. Some projects took quite a bit of time and work, but it was definitely worth it. For instance, my main goal for the day was to get a few activity books done. I first tackled a book for our 5-6 yr old Splash! week. Some pages are specifically for memory book time that we will give our campers each day. Since they are younger, we use some sentence starters to get them going.

Here is a little excerpt from one of those journaling pages:

Here's a shot of a few pages that are more activity based that we made for the kids to do while we might have some downtime checking them in and out for the day:

On the left hand page, it says for the camper to draw and color some food on the plate for the turtle. On the right hand page, it says to match the pictures of the animals with their names. I also added in a fun fact about each animal under its name.

Then, there are just some pages for coloring, again to do during some downtime that we may experience. This shot happens to be of the cover I made:

After I had a nice little booklet done for the Splash! week, I worked with my partner on the one for Prehistoric Pals week.

Since it was so nice out, and the fact that we all had to walk back to the administrative building to clock out for lunch... rather than just walk downstairs from the conference room, we all decided to eat our lunches outside. I have a feeling we will be doing this some more.

Another little project I did today, was making an alligator from a clothespin for a craft. Here's the little guy I finished:

After work today, I took Jeremy's dog Taylor on a walk, and then played in the backyard with her. It was  really nice out today.