Alex and Steph's Presidents' Week Camp

Hi All--

The first day of camp was a great success! We were thrilled to see the group of 8 get along so well all day.

We did plenty of activities but as it was our first day, we tried to gauge the group's energy-and with all the new faces and new environment-we moved at a slower, more suitable pace for all our friends.

Half of us began our day playing with blocks on the carpet, while some of us played with trains. Filippa began by decorating her name card, which we used to better remember our new friends' names. Within 5 minutes, all 8 were painting and drawing with different mediums (colored pencil, crayons, markers) their name cards.

We continued with Morning Meeting and that led into a circulation of preparing and eating snacks, doing arts and crafts, dancing to kids songs, and finally eating our lunches and spending time outside playing with chalk.

We led question based discussions to get to know our new friends better.

Some of the questions and answers (wonderful way to engage in a large group conversation, helps have a more communicative lunch setting):

Q: What is love?

"You make hearts for people."-Oscar
"Its when you play with each other and love each other."-Filippa
"When you kiss someone."-Eli
"When you love someone."-Rory
"Hugging."-Dino
"When its Valentine's Day."-Finn
"When you kiss someone."-Luca
"It's when you can kiss them."-Axel

Q: What does mommy do when you're at camp?

"She puts my brother to bed."-Oscar
"She sometimes takes care of Lola."-Filippa
"She goes to work, and she makes games."-Eli
"She takes care of mommy!"-Rory
"She takes care of my baby sister. She changes her diapers."-Dino
"She goes home and takes care of Harry. I'm the biggest bother!"-Finn
"She goes home and does work; she does mommy work."-Luca
"Working at home but sometimes she works at Unicef."-Axel

Some priceless responses!!

You guys should be very proud; we have done a lot of babysitting and not all children are as comfortable in new settings as this fun bunch was.
They were willing to try new things; like try their hand at prepping the snacks (we made whole wheat pita chips--see below for recipe-- that we ate in the afternoon with a fruit salad and in the morning enjoyed a lovely granola bar made with brown sugar and sulfide dioxide free dried apricots and plums).

We are excited to see everyone tomorrow for another day of fun! We're going to make glitter playdoh and health(ier) rice crispy treats....

Thanks for everyone's participation!
Alex and Steph

PS We were great on supplies, but if you're able:

-Books for read aloud (maybe your child can bring their favorite story to share)

-Old newspapers (to cover table for speedier cleanup)

-Don't forget about Show + Tell! Have your child bring in something to share. Great way for children to draw connections with others.

Whole Wheat Pita Chips
-100% whole wheat pita bread
-olive oil
-cinnamon
-sugar
-salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. tear pita bread into bite size pieces, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar and salt.
2. toast on a sheet pan in oven for 10 minutes.

Fruit Salsa
-3-4 kinds of fruit (e.g. bananas, strawberries, kiwi, apple)
-lemon juice
-sugar

1. chop fruit into small pieces
2. drizzle with small amount lemon juice and a pinch of sugar
3. cover and let sit in fridge for at least 1 hour to macerate

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