This morning the campers got to decorate their recipe books with markers and crayons. Inspired, apparently, by the camp programming, one camper wrote on their binder, “Peace, Love, and Cooking”. Looks like they’re starting to get it! The campers then broke up into two groups – one that cooked with the Sylvia Center until lunchtime and one that rotated through two stations, both focusing on this week’s theme of Food and the Community.
One of the stations had the campers working to sift compost in order to put fill up one of the empty beds in the Children’s Garden. Lifting heavy shovels and emptying them onto the grate, they encouraged each other to use their muscles to lift more shovels worth of compost and push the heavy wheelbarrows up the hill towards the garden. Exhausted on the way up, the kids somehow had the energy to race back towards the compost pile, eager and ready for the next load.
The second station worked at the garden beds adding in the loads of compost coming from the other campers while also adding in peet moss in order to balance out the nutrients. Using shovels and rakes, all of the campers got to get their hands dirty, use their strong muscles, and learn all about how the community compost contributes to the health of the plants in the garden.
The other half of the campers worked with Holly from the Sylvia Center making lunch for the whole camp. The meal was also oriented around the Food and the Community theme as the campers cooked dishes inspired by typical Italian, Colombian, and Vietnamese food. Cutting vegetables and fruits as well as learning other food preparation techniques, the campers proudly carried over the platters of food to the impeccably set tables. One camper gloated, as he was carrying over the food, “They’re going to love it!” At each table during lunch, campers and counselors went through different prepared discussion cards, happily discussing what super power they would have, what their favorite movies and colors are, and what three people in the world they would invite to dinner. We’re all getting to know each other better and better each day!
Testing out their knowledge from the week, all of the campers then played a game of Thursday Jeopardy, with questions about all parts of camp, from the lesson plans earlier in the week to lessons from today that they learned from the Sylvia Center. The campers left full, happy, exhausted, and soaking wet from the slip-n-slide we played at the end of the day. A perfect way to end the week!