Building, climbing and silly faces all around with this group! Our youngest group of the summer kept us busy and always laughing! This group built a forest swing and balance beam that they loved playing on throughout the week.

Several students in the group spent the week collecting spruce cones around camp and “planting them.” Every day they would water them and check on their growth. They even had a student set up as a guard to make potions in protection of the baby trees. One of our fabulous leaders, Bryanna, showed the students a way to collect water for their seedlings through the trees. She tied up a bag in a tree and left it over night to collect any water released through the leaves by the heat of the morning sun.

This group really enjoyed having the opportunity to flip through the field guides and explore what they could find around camp. They loved listening to and learning about the cicadas singing in the trees throughout the hot days. Each day as the cicada would sing, I would call out “what’s that sound?” and quickly catching on throughout the week we had more and more children responding “CICADA! ITS A CICADA!”

Proof by the singing cicadas, we had a hot week in the forest. And even though we were only out there for half days, some days all we had the energy to do is sit down and listen to a good story or two.

My favourite thing about this age group is their ability to make friends! Watching them go from strangers to holding hands and telling stories is a beautiful part of my job.

And like any week before, no program is complete without a trip to the beach! No matter how little the legs, the hike is always worth it; stopping for a foraged berry or two and a quick tree climb along the way to make the walk a little more bearable.

This group came in every day eager to explore and learn ; mission accomplished!