We can’t believe that there are only three weeks left of camp! The summer sun has kept us hot and the pool has kept us cool as our campers have learned about ecology, made plans for the future and celebrated all things spooky at Wonder Camp.
With Earth Week our campers spent loads of time in all the wonderful green space that Branksome Hall provides. They went on nature walks, learned to identify various plants and animals within the Branksome green lot and created art along the way! Our Big Wonders looked into the science of oil spills with our oil and feather experiment. The Little Wonders learned about tectonic plates and earth quakes and our Middle Wonders created their own volcanoes learning not just about volcanic eruptions but also about chemical reactions in the process! We got a little wild with our art projects, trying to be economical and environmentally friendly as we encouraged our Big Wonders to create art out of found objects inspired by Duchamp. Our Little Wonders created statues out of pipe cleaners and scrap paper and our Middle Wonders created beautiful crumpled paper art. We kept our culinary workshops ecological by having the students make Farm Fresh Watermelon and Ontario Feta Salad, delicious Scones with Ontario Cheddar and Fresh Strawberries and Summer Roles with all-local vegetables.
In week five we got to travel Into The Future. Our Little Wonders performed a beautiful rendition of I Don’t Want to Live On The Moon, while our Middle Wonders astounded with their song Cheer Up by A Great Big World. Everyone was impressed with the Big Wonders who took The Galaxy Song from Monty Python and turned it into a spoken word piece. Of course – we delved into the science of cooking, having the Little Wonders discover the five tastes; sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. They made different styles of Popcorn that explored those tastes and got to learn a little bit about their own taste preferences in the process! Our Middle Wonders loved making Avocado Toast, studying salt and how it can change the molecular make up of our food. The Big Wonders explored sweeteners by creating Strawberry Shortcake and discovering the difference between glucose, fructose and sucrose as well as how different types of sweeteners can radically change the taste of our foods. When it came time for science the Middle Wonders learned all about finger prints, the common patterns and what makes them unique. Our Big Wonders looked to the future creating their own Rube Goldberg machines and in Visual Art, drew a comic strip all about what the future held for them!
After looking to the distant future, it was time to look a little closer to our present with Halloween Week! The Little, Middle and Big Wonders (and Instructors too!) all took to the theme with enthusiasm. The art projects looked at the famous Scream by Edward Munsch and the beautiful history behind the Albrije. The Middle Wonders learned how to make spooky Halloween lava lamps using the simple ingredients of water, oil, food colouring and alka seltzer while the Little Wonders got to make everybody’s favourite, Ooblek! The culinary workshops had us all dreaming of crisp nights and falling leaves with delicious Apple Pie Turnovers, Waffle Iron Churros and wow – Pumpkin Doughnuts. The week was topped off with the Middle Wonders performing Thriller for a thrilled audience and the Big Wonders performing a spooky play they had written themselves! Halloween week made us all look forward to fall and a little less sad that camp is half over. There are still three weeks left to go and we can’t wait to keep exploring with our campers!
We can’t believe how quickly this summer is flying by but we’ve still got time to explore! We hope you’ll join us at Wonder Camp 2019!
