It’s certainly been a hot and humid summer. With many days and weeks reaching 90-plus degrees, we are enjoying our cool air-conditioned classrooms almost as much as outdoor water play! It has been a great summer cooling off in the water tables, running through the sprinklers, and splashing in the kiddie pools.
Our summer campers have been enjoying weekly themes, creating arts and crafts and exploring science experiments along the way. During Outta of This World Week, the children built rockets, mixed shaving cream and glue to make moon paintings, searched the stars, became astronauts, and discovered the galaxy and all its wonders.
During Pirates and Princesses Week, we donned skeleton bandanas, eye patches, and pirate tattoos. We became Kings and Queens and decorated gem-covered crowns. The children collected treasures throughout the week, adding them in their own treasure chests. We used treasure maps to find hidden treasures of gems, jewels, and pirate booty. Our favorite part of the week was chipping away at blocks of ice that held pirate coins and shiny jewels.
July continued with Kid Concoctions. We mixed and muddled our way through many exciting experiments, some that went off with a “BANG” (literally!), and some that fizzled. The fun was learning the cause and effect and how we could adjust our concoctions to get the best results.
The children made goop, oobleck, exploding color bags, silly putty, and moon sand. Though science is part of our everyday adventures, it was fun becoming scientists for the week and turning our classrooms into a laboratory.
Circus Week had us painting peanuts, balancing on beams, and parachute playing. We juggled, ate popcorn, and tried balancing balls on our noses. (After all, seals can do it; why can’t we?). We face painted, roared like lions, and jumped through hoops. It was a fun week with lots of lots of clowning around.
July ended with a week celebrating holidays. After all, what would July be without Christmas?
We “made snow,” decked the halls, and sang carols as the children celebrated Christmas, dressed for Halloween, and gobbled like turkeys. It was a silly week exploring and celebrating some of our favorite holidays.
August continues with Kids in the Kitchen Week and Mad About Movies Week. We will all be winners when we wrap up our final summer camp week – Race to The Finish! Children will be three-legged racing, potato sack hopping, and watermelon eating as we say good bye to a great summer and welcome a new school year.
The children continue to enjoy the summer library program and Wednesday trips to the library, which are always followed by a scavenger hunt and exploring the campus. We have enjoyed fresh-picked peas from the AE/MS garden and several surprise trips to Jake’s Market to sneak in a popsicle or two.
During August we will be collecting and stocking a few items in the Andover Food Pantry and perhaps even sneaking in a trip to Pizza Chef. We can’t help but wish for a few rainy days so we can splash in the puddles, race our indoor scooters, and perhaps even set up our indoor bouncy house.
School returns to the Inn on Tuesday, August 26. As excited as we are to start another fun school year, we’re going to enjoy every moment, every ounce, every second of this beautiful time of year. So soak up the sun (don’t forget the sunscreen), stick your feet in the sand, go on vacation, eat ice cream, cook on the barbecue, toast some marshmallows, laugh, giggle, and enjoy this wonderful time of year we so fondly know as summer.
Before you know it, we will be waiting for the school bus, jumping in the leaves, and longing for those lazy, crazy, summertime days.