Summer: So Close...yet so far

Summer is here! Although, it did seem like school dragged on forever... at least it seemed that way to me. I got out last Friday...Thank Goodness! But the last few weeks of school went by so slowly. Teachers were trying to cram every last bit of information into our heads before they released us to freedom! The suspense of summer made all the work seem a lot harder because everyone was ready to be done before our brains could explode! But, the work load slowed to a stop, life is got easier, and summer vacation finally arrived. I don't know if any of your kids feel all this stress or exhaustion, particularly the older ones, but if so I would recommend for them to keep working hard so all the work ends faster and the teachers ease up. My family and I left for Sunriver Resort in Oregon on Saturday and came home today. It was a great vacation! there were all kinds activities, such as hiking, biking, swimming, etc. One particularly cool thing we did was hike through a massive lava cave that was really deep underground. It was formed by a lava flow 100,000 years ago when Newberry Volcano erupted. Another really fun adventure was mountain biking down a volcano while stopping at many spots along the Paulina River. The water was freezing cold!!! But, it was still awesome because we got to swim, jump in, get carried out from under a waterfall by the current, and sliding down rocks with the current into deeper water! The weather there was nice throughout our entire stay :) I highly recommend Sunriver Resort as a place to go! I will be starting Camp Kt back up again really soon so keep checking back for new posts with Camp Kt activity reports.

Spring is in Bloom

Well, it's April. There's rain, there's sun, there's strong winds, and refreshing breezes that whistle and whoosh through the tree branches. Trees and flowers are in full bloom. Beautiful white and pink blossoms are sprouting on the trees and flowers are popping up every which way. Everything from hand planted plants to weeds seem to be everywhere you look, in the grass, in the dirt, in the house, in the forest, etc. Speaking of flowers here's a fun flowery craft to do with your little ones...

Tissue Paper Flowers

Things You'll Need:

• Tissue paper in a variety of colors
• A miniature flower pot per participant
• Crayola Washable Paint 
• Possibly paintbrushes 
• Green pipe cleaners

What to do: 

1. Use the Crayola Washable Paint to paint the kids' hands or fingers
2. The kids then can put hand prints and finger prints all over the outside of their pot
3. Make sure to throughly wash the hands before touching or continuing the project
4. You can also just paint the pots one solid color with paint brushes if you don't want to use the hand and finger print method. (strips, polka-dots, etc work too).
5. Let the paint dry completely 
6. Meanwhile, have the kids choose a few different colors of tissue paper
7. Have them take a couple pieces of one or more colors and hold all the pieces together at the bottom
8. Twist them together to form a swirly flower shape
9. Take a green pipe cleaner and wrap and tie it around the center of the swirl to create a stem for the flower
10. Repeat a few times
11. Twist all the stems together at the bottom 
12. Put the whole thing into the pot when the pot has dried entirely
13. Place the pots on a windowsill for a decoration

This would be a good May Day project or Mother's Day Gift!

Easter

Spring is upon us and Easter is arriving in a little over a week... we must prepare :) Here's some fun Easter decorating projects that you probably already know but anyway here it goes....

1. Egg dying (one of my favorites)

1. Hard boil some eggs
2. Get a bunch of different colors of food coloring out and get a bowl for each color
3. Fill each bowl with about 2/3 cup of hot water and 2tbs of vinegar
4. Add one color of food coloring to each bowl
5. place a hard boiled egg on a spoon and dip the egg to a color of your choice
6. Keep the egg in there until it has a good amount of color to it
7. You can do half of the egg one color and half of it another color by dipping half the egg in one color and the other half in another color. 

2. Easter Egg strings (this one is especially for kids who love to color)

1. Either draw some Easter eggs for your kids to color in or print out uncolored Easter egg coloring pages off the internet
2. Use Crayola Washable Markers, crayons, or colored pencils and color them in with your kids
3. You can do designs ad different colors
4. The do a single hole punch in the top of each Easter egg 
5. Take a piece of string and thread it through each hole
6. Then, you can hang it in a doorway or over a window

3. Chocolate Hunt (fun on a rainy day)

1. get a pack or two of Hershey's mini chocolate eggs
2. hide them in corners and little nooks and cranny's in the house, such a drawers, staircases, corners, shelves, chairs, etc
3. Let the kids go hunt for them
4. At the end see who collected the most to add a little competition to it
5. The eat away!

Enjoy!

The Hunger Games

First of all I apologize for not posting anything for a few months, I've been pretty busy. I recently developed an addiction to a book series called The Hunger Games. The series consists of three chapter books that are all somewhere around 400 pages...

1. The Hunger Games
2. Catching Fire
3. Mockingjay

These books are made for middle school aged students all the way through adults. So I realize this isn't much of a kid activity but I wanted to create a post about it so those of you who haven't been introduced to them yet can find out about them. Some or a lot of you may have already heard of or read them but if you haven't read them you should. I was so addicted to the second one, which is 391 pages, that I finished it in 2 days! On March 23 a movie of the first book came to theaters and tickets for the midnight premier sold fast, luckily I was fortunate enough to get some. Here's a brief description of what they're about... Way in the future the only civilization that exists in the World is a country that covers most of North America, called Panem. Panem was originally divided into 13 districts. But, the districts rebelled against the Capitol of Panem and District 13 was eliminated, so then there were only 12. To punish the districts for the rebellion the Capitol creates the Hunger Games. Each year one boy and one girl from each district between the ages of 12 and 18 are randomly selected as tributes to go into the Hunger Games. The tributes train and prepare for the arena, which can be anything in the wilderness. In the Hunger Games the tributes have to survive on their own and fight to the death. All the tributes have to kill each other off until there is only one remaining, this tribute is the victor. The tributes can do whatever they want to fight and survive, for there are only two rules: You can not eat the other tributes and you must remain  on your metal plate for sixty seconds before the gong sounds for the beginning of the hunger games. The main character in these books is a girl named Katniss Everdeen. So there's your backstory on the Hunger Games Book. It's a good science fiction story full of action and there's a secondary story line that has a love triangle in it.

"Winning means fame and fortune, losing means certain death, the hunger games have begun."

Enjoy and "May the odds be ever in your favor"

More Christmas Ideas

Here are a few more fun Christmas activities to enjoy with your kids. We didn't get to these at day camp but they are still just as fun.
Gingerbread Door Hanger:
Materials:

• Safety Scissors
• Brown Construction paper
• gingerbread stencils (optional)
• Pencils
• Washable Crayola Markers
• Red, Green, Brown, or White yarn or string
• A single hole puncher

Instructions:

1. Either draw or trace a few gingerbread people onto brown construction paper.
2. Cut out the gingerbread people
3. Hole punch to top of each gingerbread person
4. Use markers to decorate the people with faces and other accessories 
5. Weave the string or yarn in and out of the hole punches, connecting the people
6. Tie off the string at the ends
7. Hang it over a doorway or window

Christmas Guess Who:

Materials: 

• Index cards of strips of paper
• Tape
• something to write with

Instructions:

1. Come up with Christmas themed names and/or objects. Santa Clause, ornament, Rudolph, snow, north pole, etc.
2. Write each idea on a separate index card or strip of paper.
3. Without showing the players the cards, tape a card to each player's back with the side with the writing facing out.
4. Each player has to figure out what name or object is on their back by asking the other players, who know what the card says, yes or no questions about it... Is it a person? Is it a boy? Is it a girl? Does it live at the north pole? etc.
5. The first person to guess their's right wins. 

For extra Christmas spirit play Christmas music in the background while enjoying these activities and the other activities described in my previous post about Christmas Day Camp! 

Have A Very Merry Christmas Everyone!

Christmas Day Camp

The other day I did a Christmas day camp for the kids. We played games and did a lot of crafts. The first craft we did was given to me by Keegan, Delaney, and Cam's mom, Ashley. Thank you Ashley for your help.
Gnome Santas:
Materials:

• small, cylinder pieces of wood from a tree, branch, log, etc.
• Red, Black, White, and Green Crayola Cloud Clay.
• small googly eyes
• Tooth picks

Instructions:

1. Take the small, cylinder pieces of wood and shave of the top so that the top slants upward.
2. Choose either red or green Crayola Cloud Clay for your Santa.
3. Take off a chunk of clay and place the wood in the center closer to the bottom
4. Start the wrapping process by covering the bottom of the wood (the NOT slanted side) by folding the up the clay on the bottom onto the wood
5. Then work your way up wrapping the clay on both sides (do not fold over on the face, which is the slanted part)
6. When you get to the top fold the excess clay on the top over.
7. Take a strip of white and roll it.
8. wrap it around the face on the edge of the other clay.
9. Take some more white.
10. Mold it into a beard type shape lay it down about 1/4 way up the face.
11. Take a tooth pick and make small incisions on the beard to make it look like hair.
12. Then, with the tooth pick, cut out a mouth shape in the beard almost to the top of the beard. (this creates a mouth and a mustache)
13. Take a tiny red ball of red Crayola Cloud Clay and stick it at the top of the mustache, for a nose.
14. Either stick two small googly eyes on the face for eyes of take 2 small flat pieces of white clay and two even smaller pieces of black clay and make eyes.
15. Let them air dry

Paper Bag Reindeer Puppet:
Materials:

• Brown paper lunch sacks
•  small colored cotton balls
• Big googly eyes
• red and black washable markers
• Brown Construction Paper

Instructions:

1. Take the child's hands and trace them onto the brown construction paper
2. Cut them out
3. Have the open side of the lunch sack facing down (flap on the top)
4. Glue the handprints onto the side of the bag without the flap with the thumbs facing out in opposite directions. (these are the antlers)
5. The flap is the face so glue the googly eyes on the top of the flap and the cotton ball in the middle of the flap. 
6. If you want a moth either use a red or black marker and draw a mouth underneath the flap.
7. Now you have a puppet, stick your hand into the bag and make the flap move up and down.
8. Name it after your favorite reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, or Rudolph. 

Bruce The Spruce (the talking Christmas tree at the Warm Beach Lights of Christmas)
Materials:

• green, red, and yellow construction paper
• colored markers or small colored cotton balls.
• Safety scissors
• Pencils
• Big googly eyes

Instructions:

1. draw and cut out a fairly big Christmas tree on green construction paper.
2. Cut out a smile mouth shape on red construction paper and glue it closer to the bottom
3. Glue the googly eyes closer to the top. 
4. Draw on ornaments with Crayola Washable Markers or glue on small colored cotton balls
5. Cut out a star on yellow construction paper and glue it on the top of the tree.
6. Merry Christmas Bruce!

The last thing we did was play a game called Santa Says. It's just like Simon Says but except for saying Simon Says... you say Santa Says... and you wear a Santa hat if you have one. I got this idea from http://holidays.kaboose.com/xmas-party.html
Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving

Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! It's time for some Thanksgiving fun. Here are some fun craft ideas....

The Classic Turkey Hand (I know you all have done this one at one point but let me remind you anyway)

1. Trace your hand onto a piece 
2. Color it in so that your thumb is the head and your pinkie, index, pointer, and middle finger are the feathers the rest of the hand should be brown.
3. Don't forget to add the red stuff on the chin of you're turkey (Not sure what it's called). 
4. Color a fall background. Sun, clouds, falling leaves, grass, football, etc.

Leaf strings:

1. draw, cut, and trace leaves onto colored construction paper, red, orange,yellow
2. Punch one hole into the top of each leaf 
3. Cut some string and thread it through all the leaves, tie at both ends
4. Hang it in a doorway or over a large window

Customized Football: 

1. What would you're dream football look like? Pink with sparkles, neon rainbow, feathered, polka dotted, plaid, striped, or just regular. 
2. Draw a football on a piece of paper 
3. use all sorts of craft supplies, such as cotton balls, sparkles, feathers, Crayola Washable Markers, Crayola Crayons, Crayola colored pencils, etc. to customize your football. 

Enjoy!