Summer Camp Recap: Dancin’ with the Plants

By Carolyn Carlins, Facilitator, Phipps Science Education and Research

Summer Camp Recap - is our weekly seasonal segment featuring our summer camp programs. This is the place for camp parents to find pictures of their campers in action and see all the fun things we did all week. It’s also a great place for educators to pick up craft, story and lesson ideas for their own early childhood programs!

Dancin’ with the Plants

Last week 6 & 7 year old campers grooved to the tunes of the garden. Each day we danced, crafted, and played while learning about the life cycles and behaviors of plants and animals. From the “waggle” dance of bees to the movement of the trees, campers explored the rhythms of nature in a whole new way. Throughout the week we stretched tall like trees, went back in time to play fossil fern freeze dance, and pretended to be pollinators on our rooftop garden. We even got to see an active bird’s nest while we flew around the conservatory! And with all that dancing, we couldn’t help but do a little planting of some marigolds and carrots. It was so much fun to boogie with all of our campers!

Backyard Connection:

Take a walk in someone else’s footsteps! Come on and do the locomotion. Impersonate an animal by observing its tracks. Then try moving the way it moves.  

1. Rabbit: Hopper (hop on all fours with your feet coming in front of your hands).

2. Squirrel: Hopper (hop on all fours with your hands coming in front of your feet).

3. Frog: Hopper (hop on all fours with your hands inside your knees).

4. Skunk: Waddler (on all fours, move your right arm and leg at the same time then your left arm and leg).

5. Deer: Straight Walker (on all fours, move your right arm and left foot at the same time then your left arm and right foot, try to step in the foot print you left behind).

6. Weasel: Bounder (on all fours, hop with your hands moving first and your feet landing behind them).

7. Toad: Walker/Hopper (walk and drag the toes of your back feet, alternate with hopping).

For more pictures from this week's camp, please visit the Science Education and Research Facebook page here!

Photographs taken by Science Education staff.