BYC 2020, week 1, Friday

Hello everyone!  At today's picnic I remembered to introduce all my amazing helpers a little too late!  So, I wanted to take a minute and introduce them here!  These guys and girls all have special relationships with your children and they really keep camp running.  I'm so grateful for them and their enthusiasm.

In order as pictured...

Emily and Tyler Schutt live in our neighborhood and this is their third summer working at BYC.  They were actually campers with me when they were 4!  

My third child, Eliza, has grown up helping out at camp...since she was 6!  She's got all the ins and outs of BYC down!

Jordan is our family's good friend and has now been with us for 4 summers.  In life she is generally a kid-magnet. 

This is Michael's second summer helping out, he is my good friend's son.  He also does volunteer work with preschool age children at Time for Tots.

Charlotte is my youngest who was 6 months old when this program began.  She loves being a helper and sneaking in a project when she can!  (Ok, she's not the only one who sneaks in making her own art!)

If you know them from previous years, Andrew (19) and Abby (17), my oldest two, have their own "real jobs" these days.  Abby did pop in to say hi when she could; she misses everyone!

Here's a look at Friday!

Our art choices were

Water color resist

Bracelets

Mosaics

Salt dough free play

No time for paint to dry, so we opted for marker, chalk, and crayon drawings at the easels.

But first...

 We amazingly got to see three stages of butterflies as we saw an egg on our milkweed leaf in the yard, a few tiny baby caterpillars Cameron and Harrison brought, and a perfectly timed fly-by of an adult monarch butterfly!  What a treat!

On to our projects!

We have nature books available for kids if they have some down time.

But as soon as they heard a spontaneous outbreak of "Let it Go" out there they couldn't help jump up and see the what was going on!

After snack we went on a walk in small groups.  We gathered little nature treasures that would make fun features for a tree-face!  Using clay as a base, we got busy!  Everybody got their picture taken with their art as we walked around to view each one.

Once I saw the clovers I couldn't help myself.

On our walk we found a cicada literally in the process of shedding its exoskeleton, morphing from a nymph to an adult.  There were two empty exoskeletons nearby and one adult cicada that had probably just molted.  Today has been amazing for appreciating nature!

The dark one, second from the bottom on the left I thought was just the shell, but when we came back 10 minutes later the cicada was emerging. 

Of course I had to get a picture of this amazing moment!

We practiced our play and prepared for your arrival!

Here's the scenery...

And here are all of you!  So excited to show you this old American folk tale, The Gunniwolf!

The helpers and I just loved spending time with your wonderful kids making art, enjoying nature, singing, and dancing.  Thank you for coming to Back Yard Club!  Have a wonderful summer everyone!