2009 Jr. Nature Explorer Camps!

The Jr. Nature Explorers Program -
combining learning with fun!


2009 marks the 5th anniversary year for the Jr. Nature Explorers Program, and once again we have expanded our offerings of reasonably-priced classes and camps for children ages 4 to 7.

This year there are 10 camps to choose from, each with a different theme- sign up for one or several! The themes of each camp are listed below, along with the space available as of August 20th:

2009 Jr. Nature Explorer Camps for children ages 4-5:
• June 22-24 Roots and Shoots- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• July 6-8 The Wiggly World of Worms- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• July 13-15 Pollinator Power- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• July 20-22 Beetles on Parade- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• August 3-5 Winged Wonders- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• August 10-12 The World of Water- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• August 24-26 Flowers and Fruits- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!


2009 Nature Explorer Camps for children ages 6-7:
• June 29- July 1 The Wiggly World of Worms- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• July 27-30 Beetles on Parade-this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

• August 17-19 Roots, Shoots, Flowers, and Fruits- this camp was a blast- thanks to a great group of campers!

Each Jr. Nature Explorer camp day includes activities in the Warren G. Magnuson Park Children's Garden, as well as hikes through the nearby grassland and forest trails, the Native Plant Border, and the Community Garden P-Patch.

Children who attend Jr. Nature Explorers programs experience the benefits of teamwork, along with the joy of discovery and sharing what they’ve learned with one another. When parents arrive at the end of the day’s activities, expect some dirty knees and fingernails, along with your child’s happy smiles and an excited recitation of their adventures!

All the camps are filled with fun, age-appropriate, hands-on activities that encourage curiosity and understanding of the natural world around us. For a detailed description of the activities planned for each individual camp, click on its listing in the right hand column on this page.

Here is a summary of the fun and educational experiences your child will have in a typical Jr. Explorer camp:

* sensory walks
* exploring the worm bin
* creating nature art to decorate the garden
* learning about the plants, animals, insects, and birds that live in the park
* planting, tending, harvesting, and snacking in our organically-grown P-Patch garden
* playing nature-theme games
* free play, storytime, and quiet time
* creating nature crafts to take home
* building homes for the creatures who live in the garden.
* and last but not least, a picnic lunch each day in the garden!

Each camp is held Monday through Wednesday from 9:30am-12:30pm.
The fee for each camp is $90.00

The Jr. Nature Explorer Program is sponsored by the Warren G. Magnuson Park Community Center, which handles all the registration and fee collection for the program.

For more information, or to register for any Jr. Nature Explorer programs, call the Warren G. Magnuson Park Community Center at 206-684-7026, or download a quarterly brochure from their website at http://www.cityofseattle.net/parks/centers/magnuson.htm


Additional 2009 Magnuson Park Environmental Events include:

• July 12th- Family Workparty in the Children's Garden from 1-3pm. Come enjoy the fun after camp, and help us keep the garden growing strong! Tools and gloves provided for adults and children to carry out simple and easy garden tasks.
  
• August 7th-Free family activities in the Children's Garden from 6-8pm during the Recess Monkey concert in the Magnuson Amphitheater. Visit http://magnusonchildrensgarden.blogspot.com for more info.
• August 15th- Family Workparty in the Children's Garden from 1-3pm. Come enjoy the fun after camp, and help us keep the garden growing strong!
  
• Sept 19th- Seattle Works Day in the Children's Garden from 10am-2pm. Come enjoy the fun of creating a special new feature in the garden, and help us keep it growing strong! Tools and gloves provided for adults and children to carry out simple and easy garden tasks.
• October 17th- Seattle Works Day in the Children's Garden from 10am-2pm. Come enjoy the fun of creating a special new feature in the garden, and help us keep it growing strong! Tools and gloves provided for adults and children to carry out simple and easy garden tasks.

• Field trips for schools and child care centers to the Magnuson Community Center Bird-Friendly Landscape and Children's Garden. Visit http://birdfriendlylandscape.blogspot.com and http://magnusonchildrensgarden.blogspot.com for more info.

• Magnuson Park is a proud participant in the annual National Environmental Education Week, which was held this year on April 12th-19th. The Children's Garden and Magnuson Community Center Bird-Friendly Landscape hosted 4 educational events that week for school-age children!
  

For more info on National Environmental Education Week, visit http://www.eeweek.org

June 22-24 Roots and Shoots

For ages 4-5

Early summer is a time when plants are growing rapidly all over the Community Garden and nearby park areas. Every day brings new more lushness into easy view at each place we take a stroll!

In this camp, our activities will focus on the first 3 plant parts that emerge from every seed: the roots, stems, and leaves. They will plant seeds in the garden and discover the important "jobs" that roots, stems, and leaves do for every plant. They will also delight in harvesting and eating fresh organic crops from our p-patch. Each day, they will add plant-part coloring pages to their Nature Journal, and create nature crafts to take home such as root viewers, bark collages, and leaf prints.

Short hikes, songs, games, and pantomime will round out this 3-day adventure in the world of plants!

June 29-July 1 The Wiggly World of Worms

For children ages 6-7

The soil underneath our feet is an amazing and fascinating world for children (and some adults like myself!) Worms and other soil creatures are hard at work around the clock, decomposing leaf litter and other organic matter into rich compost that feeds the plant roots in every forest and field in the Pacific Northwest.

The Children's Garden contains a working worm bin where our leftover lunch scraps and fallen leaves feed the red wiggler worms and their friends. We also have yard waste bins where our garden trimmings compost with the help of potato bugs and other decomposers. These garden features enable children to explore and examine this wonderful world up close and in living color.

This camp is filled with adventures such as digging in the garden to search for earthworms and ground beetles, and building healthy soil by harvesting our compost and taking its treasure to spread under the vegetable crops in our p-patch plot. Children will also learn basic identification skills for the "soil critters" they'll see, and enjoy helping the decomposers who are hard at work in our "messy materials" area by opening up the stumps and branches that are slowly turning into wood chips.

Your children will come home from this camp with extra amounts of dirt on their knees, matched by the giant smiles on their faces and interesting soil stories to share!

July 6-8 Wiggly World of Worms

For children ages 4-5

The soil underneath our feet is an amazing world of worms and other soil creatures, just waiting to be discovered. Perhaps because children live closer to the ground than we adults, they absolutely love to explore and experience this wonderful world.

This camp is filled with adventures such as digging in the garden to search for earthworms and ground beetles, and exploring our worm bin that is home to red wigglers pillbugs, and millipedes. Children will harvest its rich compost and sprinkle it through our vegetable garden, carefully returning any stray worms back to the bin. They will add fresh bedding and leftover food scraps from our lunches to feed our new friends, and examine the stumps in our "messy materials" area for other decomposers at work!

Be aware that children will come home from this camp with extra amounts of dirt on their knees, matched by the giant smiles on their faces!

July 13-15 Pollinator Power

For children ages 4-5

Bees, butterflies, birds, and bats are all very important to our daily lives, because they pollinate many of our favorite fruit and vegetable plants. Their work helps ensure that our garden plot will provide much for us to snack on too! These delightful creatures are also beautiful to see, and interesting to watch while they busily work throughout the Community Garden.

In this camp, children will spend much time in the P-Patch and Demonstration Orchard, where its easy to observe pollinators in action and see the fruits of their labors. They will plant and harvest food crops, learn how to "bee safe", and how to identify the differences between bees and other look-alikes. They will also give our bat house a fresh new coat of paint, and make pollinator signs. Last but not least, they will help put together a "bee condo", to attract orchard mason bees (a valuable, non-stinging, native bee that ensures better pollination of all fruit trees and shrubs).

Nature crafts will include potting up pollinator plants to grow at home, making a friendly caterpillar, and picking a pollinator bouquet!

July 20-22 Beetles on Parade

For children ages 4-5

During the sun-filled days of mid-summer, it's easy for children to find a wide variety of delightful beetles "parading" around in the park. Besides being interesting to observe while feeding on wildflower nectar, Ladybugs, Soldier Beetles, and Ground Beetles also feast on the pest insects and slugs that plague our gardens!

Children will go on "bug hunts" and follow ant trails on the paths that wind through Community Garden, and learn how to "bee safe" around insects that have stingers. They will learn how to find the flowers that attract beneficial insects, build beetle houses in the Children's Garden, Songs, games, and stories will give them much news to share when they return home from their adventures!

Nature crafts will include creating a "pet" beetle to take home, making a "ladybug spinner", and decorating a beneficial insect guide to hang on the wall.

July 27-29 Beetles on Parade

For children ages 5-7

Mid-summer is a time when a wide variety of delightful beetles are out "parading" around the park for all to see. Besides being interesting to observe while feeding on wildflower nectar, Ladybugs, Soldier Beetles, and Ground Beetles also feast on the pest insects and slugs that plague our gardens!

Children will gain basic insect identification skills while on "bug hunts" throughout the Community Garden, discover which plants attract beneficial insects, follow ant trails, and learn how to "bee safe" around insects with stingers. They will build beetle houses in the Children's Garden, learn songs and dances, and make colorful "beetle-friendly" signs for the children's garden.

Take-home nature crafts will include:

• Creating a "Beetle-Mobile".
• Building a winter shelter structure for ladybugs
• Potting up plants to grow at home!
  

Aug. 3-5 Winged Wonders

For children ages 4-5

This camp will be held August 3rd-5th, a great time to explore and experience the birds and butterflies that abound in Magnuson Park. The park is home to a wide variety of resident birds all year round, and especially in summer when Tree Swallows dart above the meadows, White-Crowned Sparrows hop through the grasses, and Warblers sing from the treetops.

Children will take short hikes to the nearby grassy meadows and shady glens and have fun stretching their limbs to do the "swallow swoop", "robin hop", and "butterfly dip". Other adventures include exploring the Community Garden perennial borders in search of Hummingbirds and Swallowtail Butterflies, as well as the annual arrival of the Grasshoppers. Building birdbaths, puddling ponds, and dust bowls in the Children's Garden will give them lasting landmarks that they can check on anytime in the future while visiting the park!

Take home nature crafts include:

• making their very own bird-watching binoculars to use on our walks
• creating bird-friendly bookmarks
• decorating a Garden Birds wall hanging for their own room!
  

Aug. 10-12 The World of Water

For children ages 4-5




This camp will be held August 10th-12th, when the heat of summer makes the world of water an inviting subject to explore and experience.

Children will learn about the water cycle and the value of clean water for all creatures through songs, dances, dam-building, and games. They will build a new "creek" for our outdoor sink, and make sure all our thirsty new garden plants get a good long drink. We will take hikes to the edge of the old and new wetlands in the park, keeping an eye out for tadpoles, frogs, and water birds.

Take home nature crafts include:

• Making a frog puppet
• Decorating a Salmon-Friendly wall hanging for their room
• Potting up a marsh plant to grow in their own garden!
  

Aug. 17-19 Roots, Shoots, Flowers, and Fruits

For children ages 6-7

This year's camp will be held August 17th-19th, when summer's bounty is in full glory. It's a great time for children to explore and experience all 6 plant parts: roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds!

They will dig in the garden to uncover the roots of several different plants, and compare them with one another. They will take bark rubbings and leaf samples from different trees to compare, and examine the wide variety of developing fruits in the nearby Demonstration Orchard.

Each day's Sensory Walk is a chance to get to know plants with all 5 of their senses!

Each day, children will add new coloring pages to their Nature Journal, where they can also write down their impressions and discoveries about the world of plants. Each day there will also be songs, stories, and nature crafts to make, such as a plant press, collection box or basket.

Gathering wild blackberries in the park, doing taste tests in our organic vegetable garden, picking a flower bouquet to take home, and planting seeds for fall garden crops will round out this 3-day adventure.

This camp is a great way to wind up summer vacation with a "plant parts party" extravaganza!

Aug. 24-26 Flowers and Fruits

For children ages 4-5

Late summer is a time when hundreds of wildflowers and cultivated plants are ending their flowering time, and ripening their fruits and seeds. It's a great time for children to explore and experience the second half of the plant cycle: flowers, fruits, and seeds!

They will gather flower bouquets, examine the wide variety of developing fruits in the nearby Demonstration Orchard, and plant new seeds for the fall vegetable garden.

Each day's Sensory Walk is a chance to get to know these plant parts with all 5 of their senses!

Each day, children will add new coloring pages to their Nature Journal, where they can also draw their daily discoveries. Each day there will also be songs, stories, and nature crafts to make, such as a treasure box, seed face, or garden crown.

Gathering wild blackberries in the park, making flower "burritos" in our organic vegetable garden, and collecting seeds to take home are other parts of what makes this 3-day adventure special.

This camp is a great way to wind up summer vacation with a "garden harvest party"!