Animal Explorers

It was so exciting to meet our Little Explorer campers! Today we learned about what makes an animal wild and what makes it tame. We discussed how a day for a dog and a squirrel are different before reading Annie and the Wild Animals, where Annie tried to make all sorts of wild animals her pets! Little Explorers learned the word “camouflage” and how different animals blend into their environment. We went on a rhyming scavenger hunt to find animals hiding on the third floor.  

We played a game like hide-and-go-seek with prey animal toys hiding from predator animal toys. Campers loved to sing and dance along to “The Animal Song” and try animal yoga poses. To finish off our day, we painted arms and four fingers to make a giraffe craft. We are so excited to see what else we will do this week!

Little Explorers took a  trip underwater on Tuesday. We learned about salt water and fresh water and the different animals that live there. With water colors, we painted underwater landscapes and added stickers. We read two books, Swimmy and Fish is Fish about different underwater creatures. Campers got to go fishing with magnetic poles for different fish.

We also played a game with movement dice so we got to pretend to be different ocean animals. What a wild time!

Little Explorers took flight on Wednesday! We learned all about things with wings. We started our day by coloring an owl mask and reading a story before we had a very special guest – Lannis from Leslie Science and Nature Center! She taught us all about owls through story, song, and games! We learned all about the different parts of an owl and what owls eat. Lannis even brought out a real owl for us to meet! This was certainly a highlight for many of our explorers. 

After our visitor, we talked about how all different bird beaks work for eating. Through exploring bird beak casts and pretending different tools (tweezers, pliers, chop sticks, and more!) were beaks, our campers got to try out how birds eat different foods.

We also read Stellaluna, a story about a bat who lives with birds and many campers loved this story. We can’t wait for tomorrow!

Today we learned about forest animals and who lives in a tree.We started our day by making bird feeders out of pipe cleaners and cheerios.

We read The Busy Little Squirrel who was collecting different foods to store for winter. During our coloring time, campers were given leaf impressions to make. We saw some wonderful artwork!

Campers also made some hedgehogs from painting with forks – so silly! We played a game similar to hide and seek where we had one friend hide “in a tree” and someone else try to guess who was missing from our circle. What fun we’ve had pretending to be in a tree.

For our last day of camp, Little Explorers learned about different animal homes or habitats and the different things animals need in their habitats. We built our own habitats from things in the craft bin to illustrate how these places might look. Campers got to play a game about deer habitats and see how deer can change because of their habitat.