By: Grayson Meck
Synopsis of the past few weeks:
Continuing on with our 5 week Summer Day Camp programs, the three day week prior to the Fourth of July time off and the week of July 8-11 have mostly been concerned with discussing how we wanted to organize and run our Creative Crafts Day Camp. Much like the week prior to our Horticulture Day Camp the first week and our Foods Day Camp the second week, I spent the three days prior to the Fourth of July meeting with Kendra Young (4-H agent) to brainstorm several activities she has done in the past, as well as think of some ideas for new activities that the campers would enjoy. In the end we decided on 15 total crafts, beginning on Monday with our July 4th themed Flag hanger made from string and beads. The second activity we did was called fuse beads, which the campers placed on templates and we fused them together with a clothes iron. We finished the day off with a snack, our sand art activity, and finally campers painted their snapple vases (pictured above). On Tuesday, our activities included Trivets, tie-die bandannas, as well as painting bowls and fans. Day three activities included Leather Craft with Sarah Gregory (former 4-H volunteer who has devoted much of her life to youth development), painting wooden snakes, and making necklaces out of macrame knots. And finally, we concluded our Creative Crafts camp with decoupage journals, a decoupage switch plate, and our snack that day was a food craft we called edible sushi. As I had learned from our Day Camps prior to the Creative Crafts Camp, there can be moments of on-the-fly thinking where something might go differently than expected where we have to make a decision in the moment on how to best handle it. But Miss Kendra’s activities were organized in a way that lined up perfectly with the time she allotted during her program planning, so each day went exactly how it was supposed to. As I plan for next weeks Wilderness day (When I will lead), I am going to do a better job of creating realistic timetables for each scheduled activity in order to maintain a concrete schedule. Aside from program planning the week prior to fourth of July and running our Creative Crafts camp, I also had the opportunity to head out to Hanover with Ed to a well-water testing PowerPoint presentation performed by Hanover Agr agent Laura Maxey-Nay and her intern Savannah. It was a very informative presentation that was actually very beneficial for me because my father has actually been talking about testing the well at our river house now for the past few weeks, and I was able to relay the information I learned from Laura’s talk over to him for future plans. Next week, Ed and I will run our Environment and Natural Resources Day Camp with topics including soils, water, and wildlife, and I am about finished planning for the Wildlife-themed day on the final day!
Grayson Meck's Blog 