Kids Camp: Dinosaurs

Dinosaur camp looked a little different this past week, but the kids still had lots of fun!  Casey planned to bring Brooks over to my house for everything, but then we found out that some important work was to be done on the farm.  A crane was coming to move a small bin!  Lane couldn't miss that...so we moved dinosaur camp to my mom's house.

First, we read some dino books:

Usborne Discovery Dinosaurs by Rachel Firth

Really Big Dinosaurs & Other Giants and Flying Giants, both by Monica Hughes

Dinosaur Babies by Leonie Bennett

Our craft was making dinosaur fossils!  I stirred up a batch of salt dough, then we pressed toy dinosaurs into the dough to make indentations.  Lane and Brooks had fun coming up with different ideas!  We did the whole dinosaurs at first, but then got more creative and did just the feet or just the tail.

While the craft was baking, Casey fed Keely while the rest of us went outside to see the crane.  (I tried to tie this into dinosaurs by pointing out that some dinos were as tall as the crane, but I'm not sure the kids cared!)

That took up quite a bit of time, but it was pretty exciting for the little ones!  Curtis was mostly excited to have it finished before the sun came out from behind the clouds ;)

Next up was snack time!  Casey made jello "dinosaur eggs" (yum!!) and we ate them with pretzel "dinosaur bones".

By this time the kids just wanted to play, so we put in a dinosaur video (National Geographic's Dinosaurs and other Creature Features) and let them play with the toy dinosaurs.

At home, I made a lunch consisting of cheese sandwiches in the shape of dinosaurs, hard-boiled "dinosaur" eggs, Puffcorn "dino bones", and "prehistoric rocks" (peas and carrots).

We planned on taking all the kids to the Dinosaur Museum in Milford.  I called them a couple of days ahead of time to make sure they would be open...but when we got there at about 3:30 on Saturday...they were closed.  I had one unhappy little boy!!  I quickly remembered that I had heard about a place in Lincoln called "Lost in Fun".  Casey looked it up and luckily it was open.  I think by the time we walked in the door, Lane had forgotten about the dinosaurs!

Brooks is in there somewhere!

Lane had a blast running around to all the exhibits!  Katy was a little more reserved, but she definitely had fun.  I knew she liked it when she abandoned the swings for something else!

Lane was way more adventurous than I thought he would be!  This inflatable slide was actually pretty big, but he went down it with no hesitation!  He also loved the "space pit" filled with foam.  He's asked to go back several times already!

Although dino camp didn't turn out quite like I wanted, the kids still had fun...and we've been talking and playing dinosaurs all week :)

Kids Camp: Space

This past week we did space camp!  Once again, we did activities on a couple of different days since we were pretty busy!

One rainy afternoon, we painted Styrofoam balls to look like planets:

Our finished solar system wasn't very accurate, but the kids love it!  Lane made those "satellites" all by himself during quiet time one day.

The books that we read were The Moon, The Planets, The Sun, and The Stars.  They were easy to read and a good introduction to everything in the solar system.  We also watched a Curious George episode (Rocket Ride) and a silly video called There Goes a Spaceship.  I was really disappointed that I couldn't find any other cool space videos at the York library!  We also checked out some pictures and videos on the NASA website.

Our other craft was Puffy Paint Moons.  It was pretty messy and neither kid really liked using their hands to spread the "paint", so I ended up finishing them both.   Lane really liked the end result though - they are both hanging on our fireplace.

For a snack, we tried the freeze-dried astronaut ice cream that I ordered from Amazon.  I liked it, but the rest of the family thought it was pretty weird!  I also made a snack for the afternoon: marshmallow stars, "planet" Cheerios, and "moon rock" M&Ms.

Later that afternoon, we headed over to my mom's to do our two "games" for space camp: walking on the moon and flying a spaceship.

First, Lane and Katy played in this old spaceship that Bret had when he was little.  It has lots of levers and gadgets to mess around with.

Next, mom had made a "moon" to walk on - a large plastic sheet duct-taped shut and filled with water.  It was really fun!

The water inside felt nice and cool on a hot day and it was really squishy and funny to walk on!  They also had fun throwing "Saturn's rings" around.

The funniest part was when Lane was playing by himself...all of a sudden, the tarp started to slide down the slight hill towards the dog pen.  Lane was crawling as fast as he could to keep from hitting the pen!

Next up: dinosaurs!

DIY Kids Camp: Ocean

Lane really misses the structure of preschool and getting to do the "fun" stuff there.  So, my plan this summer is to do "summer camp" with the kids once a week or so.  Each week (or every two weeks) I'm planning a day where we learn about something by doing crafts, games, reading books, and watching videos.

I started out with Oceans since there was a ton of ideas on Pinterest and there were so many different aspects of the ocean!  For this camp, I split it up in to an afternoon and a morning since we've been so busy lately.

Monday afternoon, Lane and I made sock octopuses while Katy napped.  The octopus is simply a knee sock stuffed with batting and then cut into 8 "legs".

Later, after Katy woke up, we watched Ocean Habitats: Shoreline and Reef.  It was a little advanced for Lane (lots of terms that I'm sure he didn't know), but he soaked it up anyway!  (I just grabbed ocean-themed videos and books at the library hoping for the best!).

After the video, the kids had fun "fishing" for Goldfish with a pretzel stick dipped in peanut butter.

I read them the book A House for Hermit Crab and then they stayed busy with a corresponding preschool and tot pack while I made supper.  This was Katy's first time doing a tot pack; she needed a little direction, but she loved it and did great!

Camp began again on Wednesday morning.  We started out by reading books: Mister Seahorse, The Snail and the Whale, and Trout, Trout, Trout.

Lane was super excited to do the "ocean craft."  We made an ocean in a bottle...I tried to find tiny shells or sea creatures to put in the bottles, but after searching Walmart and Amazon, I didn't find any!  I ended up taking apart the beaded necklaces they made at VBS last week since there were dolphins and whales mixed in.  

They look less than thrilled in this picture, probably because I gave them
strict instructions not to touch!  I didn't want blue food coloring
all over the floor!

Later in the morning, after I got some chores done and the kids worked out their crabbies by playing outside, we watched a few videos about sea creatures on the National Geographic website.

Since the kids have been obsessed with cushions lately, I made up a game called "Save the sea creatures!".  They had to rescue Nemo, the octopuses, and a duck from the couch by only jumping on the cushions and not landing in the "water"...otherwise sharks would get them.  Katy didn't get it, but Lane was so into it that he was running and jumping and out of breath.  He saved the creatures about 4 or 5 times :)

Finally, we enjoyed an ocean lunch of jellyfish hot dogs, a bread and cheese boat (that had a pretty sad sail!), and ocean jello.  Curtis and I were fine with regular hot dogs ;)

The kids had so much fun doing all this and even more fun when they got to tell Daddy everything they did!  I hope I have enough motivation to keep it going all summer....and hopefully we can make it a summer tradition.  (That's why I'm blogging about this...so that next year I can remember what I did!).  Next up: Space!