"I Liked Making New Friends and Seeing My Old Friends" - Yoyo What We Will Miss Out About Camp: "Listening to Jordan read Matilda." - Maisie "Origami" - Olivia and Coco "Tie Dye and Origami." - Abby "Getting to eat lunch and eat snack with you guys and making new best friends." - Carolina "Rock Climbing Outside" - Maisie and Tegan Portraits and SymmetryPop quick, hot shot: Is your face symmetrical? Does one side look the or are their little differences. What makes you unique? We explored symmetry and individuality today with some portrait drawing. Students took head shots, cropped the images and then used a mirror, pencils and colored pencils to create their own unique portraits and learn more about themselves and their peers. Along the way, we talked about what features made us different and unique but that in the end everyone is unique and everyone deserves kindness.
"What's a good color for my skin tone?" - Yoyo "Our strategy is to start with pin and then add brown" - Maisie "They're all unique." - Olivia "Some can be silly." - Ellie "Some are light colors and some are dark colors." - Dagny  Friends and Smoothies
It's not Goodbye. It's See You Later   "But what about your orange juice?" - Dagny
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A SUMMER TO REMEMBERIt's hard to believe we've reached the end of camp! This summer, we have explored clay, wire, various paints, sewing... We get out of breath just running through the list! More important than any of that, though, we forged deep bonds with old and new friends. Before we get lost in the memories, let's take a look at our last day of camp... It's only right that our last day of camp was spent getting busy thanking all the wonderful people who helped in our classroom. In a meeting yesterday, we quickly identified Will, Elena, and Ines as our special people. Today, we worked on making beautiful cards to reflect our gratitude. Time to deliver the cards! Say hello to the Session Two Children!FriendshipAfter realizing that today is the last day of camp, the children began brainstorming ways to make sure that this is not goodbye. If you're missing your friends... Make them a card or visit them at the playground! - Aida Have a playdate! - Nora This has been an amazing summer! Thank you for joining us and allowing us to form deep Connections with your children. With love, The 2021 Connections Team  On our last day of summer camp.... ... we celebrated the wonderful relationships that have formed over the summer, with each other and our environment. Revisiting and exploring wire We created playgrounds, sculptures, bracelets and necklaces... "This needs to stand up!" - Virginia, adjusting the wires on her base "I did it!" - Ramsey, stringing on a bead "I made a playground." - Virginia "I made a slide on the playground." - Whit "I can twirl my dress around!" - Virginia   We ended our day singing and dancing to some of our favorite songs (Ragnar shared his favorite song with us - Uptown Girl by Billy Joel) and enjoying our delicious berry smoothie popsicles outside on the front lawn. "I miss camp" - Connor Oh what a wonderful, fun, inspiring, and creative time it has been! The classroom was beaming with enthusiasm and pure joy. We had an absolute blast and enjoyed every minute with your incredible children. We can't thank you enough for all your support und cooperation in these past weeks! We will miss all of you dearly! We wish you all the best and hope you will have a wonderful rest of your summer! Love, Emma and Ines A Special Day!Today, we revealed a surprise plan for our morning... let's bake a special treat!
Cookies!What type of cookies do you like to eat? I like chocolate cookies with sugar on them. - Maxon I like cookies with cinnamon. - Nora I like cookies with sugar on the top. - Cape I like all kinds. - Audrey You know who likes cookies the most? Cookie Monster! - Aida I like all different kinds, but I do not like Cookie Monster! - Lucas Helping with the recipe.
Scooping Peanut Butter Mix in the Oats and Stir, Stir, Stir
Add in any bonus mix-ins! Time to Bake
Let's Eat!
 Hands up if you liked the cookies! Check out our Tie-Dye results from yesterday's project. Beautiful!
See you later, friends.Today we said our "see you laters" to our friends Sylvie and Shan. Sylvie was a wonderful friend to everyone in the connections crew throughout the duration of camp and Shan was an amazing teacher! We hope you both enjoy the rest of your summer.
Blending popsicles Today we returned to our love of cooking by making popsicles. First, we had to blend together our frozen fruit, greek yogurt, and orange juice. Everyone helped with measuring out the ingredients and dumping them into the blender. Then, each child who wanted a turn got a chance to push the "pulse" button on the blender! Finally, we poured our smoothie mixture into popsicle molds and popped them in the freezer. We'll get to enjoy our creation tomorrow, but we had a little taste of smoothie at snack today! "What is all of this today?" - Ragnar
"I saw strawberries. I saw some cups." - Zara |
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"It's mushy." - Soren
"When you pour it comes up because sometimes smoothies come up...or down." - Zara
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"Are we gonna drink it?" - Whit
"We will put it in the fridge." - Zara
"But what about the rest?" - Soren
Climbing high
Climbing was a popular activity in the outdoor classroom this morning! Whit, Connor, Ragnar, Virginia, Ellie, Soren, and Zara all crossed a balance beam and climbed up a "ladder" to reach the top of the tunnel. Whit and Ragnar even climbed to the top of the climbing net!
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"I'm being brave." - Virginia | "Are we gonna have this here forever?" - Ragnar |
We'll see you tomorrow for our last day of camp!
Last Water Day :(
Don't cry because its over. Smile because it happened. - Dr. Seuss
Last one, best one! We had our last Water Day, but what a great time it was. Not only did we have our water slide and sprinklers, but we also had MESSY ART OUTSIDE! We had so much fun at messy art, we became art ourselves.
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Messy Art!
"This is definitely messy art." - Rania
"That's a great new technique, Rania." - Ada
"Watch! I have a sponge. Then I take it and slam it. It's sponge art." - Olivia
"Come see our messy art! It's beautiful!" - Ada
"That's a great new technique, Rania." - Ada
"Watch! I have a sponge. Then I take it and slam it. It's sponge art." - Olivia
"Come see our messy art! It's beautiful!" - Ada
 Before | After |
Friends Who Play Together, Stay Together
Your cinnamon bun is ready. It takes so long because we had to take out the mulch. - Coco
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Messy art! This is my favorite. I love to get messy - Dagny
Today, the Explorers got their hands dirty with several types of messy art. We started with screen printing. Children made negatives of the images, put the screen over their work and experimented with how the paint interacted with the screen and paper. On the other side of the room, we continued our exploration of splatter painting.
This is called Rainbow Rain! - Ada
Tie Dye
Our most popular messy art was tie dye. After some research, each child used rubber bands and created a design. Once everyone was happy with their design, we went outside and used dye to create our master pieces.
Step 1: Wrap it up
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Step 2: Paint it.
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Step 3: Patience...
LAST WATER DAY OF ST. JOHNS
SUMMER CAMP 2021!
Today was the last Water Wednesday of Summer 2021 for our Connections Crew! The students ran about the playground gleefully, washing construction trucks, climbing up the water slide, racing around the sprinkler, and most importantly, having fun! :)
ICE-DYEING!
We chose to celebrate the end of camp with a timeless "camp tradition": tie-dye t-shirts! Students were called in pairs to the outside studio during water day to ice-dye the clothing/masks that had been brought in earlier in the week. Ice-dying is an art method of crushed ice cubes sprinkled onto the fabric, then various dye powder bottles are used to make unique colors and patterns, or as Aida calls it, "making rainbows."
“Sam I have two things! One for me and one for my baby brother!”- Remy
“My hands are cold!” - Nora scooping ice onto the t-shirt
“When you put yellow on the ice, it glows”- Aida
“When you put yellow on the ice, it glows”- Aida
S N A C K T I M E
Chit chat amongst the connections crew while enjoying Chex and cantaloupe
Finishing up hand-sewing/ indoor activities
We will miss the excitement of water day during drop-off, the cheers and laughter, and the happy faces your children bring each morning. Happy Water Wednesday!
Easel painting & marbling & watercolors, oh my!
Today we explored paint again! Several (including Skye and Virginia) worked on communal easel paintings inside the classroom, while others created individual works on the outdoor easel. Watercolor was available at the light table, so we were able to combine our weeks of paint and light! We also created imprints using watercolor and shaving cream again, and loved feeling the texture of the shaving cream.
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"I paint some strawberries and rainbows. A rainbow like a hot day outside." - Virginia
"Why are you trying on hats?" - Virginia
"Because I like hats." - Ragnar
"You like hats?" - Virginia
"Yeah!" - Ragnar
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"Lion's gonna eat you." - Ramsey
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"Beautiful day out here." - Soren
"What's the weather? It's humid." - Ragnar
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"Go Ramsey, go!" - Connor
Have a great Wednesday! We'll see you tomorrow!
I Love Coloring!
Today we flexed our creative muscles during our painting sessions. We created new, unique patterns and painting with a variety of colors which we created yesterday.
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Messy art is the best art! - Dagny
So that's kind of like Jackson Pollock - Jordan
No! "Spaghetti Messy" Art - Yoyo
No! "Spaghetti Messy" Art - Yoyo
Somewhere along the way, we realized that paint can come out of the paintbrush in all types of ways. This led some people to try flicking their paintbrush at the paper in what we called "modern art" or "spaghetti messy" art.
Dagny is art now! It's on her shirt - Ada
It's on the water bottle - Dagny
Now the water bottle is art, Jordan - Yoyo
It's on the water bottle - Dagny
Now the water bottle is art, Jordan - Yoyo
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