Day 1: Welcome to Camp!

We started camp with a bang today, or should I say with a bead!?

Our day started with an All Darwin Meeting, where learned about proper handshakes and greeted each other with a handshake and a welcome. We're all so glad to be here together! Here's some more info about handshakes: Effective Handshakes (from Wikihow). We talked about camp rules and some specific rules for this house (like "Please don't climb the porch!"). We took a few minutes to take some action photos of each kid that we'll use later in the summer for a couple of projects. What a teaser! We also got this CAMP DAY 1 group photo, what a crew!

We decorated the outside of our journals (don't forget the spine, so you can find it on your bookshelf!). These blank books are Writers' Notebooks from the excellent company Bare Books:

One of our prep projects was a writing prompt. Two writing prompts actually, both pretty quick and painless. It is summer, after all. The first was a sort of pre-camp check-in to poll the kids' expectations and understanding of what camp would entail. We asked them to simply respond to the question, "What does CAMP mean to you now?" The second prompt was a check on the time they'd spent together at our Springtime Darwin Dinners. We asked the kids to describe each other, using one or two words per friend. This morning, we shared the words we'd used (not linking them to anyone in particular, just sort of building a word cloud of the wonderful friendships we've already formed...

We took that list (you can see it on the left, above) and grouped up some of the descriptive words and characteristics. Then we assigned a color to each group of words (that's the photo on the right). Then we broke out the beads! Remember friendship pins? Well, Camp Darwin is bringin' 'em back. We used our color code to make a pin for each friend according to the words we'd written in our journals to describe them. Everyone ended up with a full set of pins, one from each camp friend. I had labelled a muffin tin ahead of time with campers' initials and the pins were given (somewhat) anonymously. We assembled them into clusters so we could all wear them (or attach them to our backpacks). To be honest, I wasn't sure how this was going to go. It felt a little lame going in and I wasn't sure anyone would be excited about it. So I stopped the project partway through and polled everyone and got a HUGE thumbs up! They loved this so much that some kids just kept making pins until later I eventually ran out of blank safety pins! I promised to buy more before next week so we could have this as an ongoing project. 

 

As the kids finished their pins, I set them loose for a little free play. We'd already talked about some options that were available to them, and they came back and asked if it would be okay if they played Cops & Robbers tag. Sure! But since everyone goes to different schools and I know game rules can vary, we put the game on pause and they had a kid-led conversation and even voted on what should be the jail. I just observed.

As things died down on Cops & Robbers, some opted for Chess. Chess turned out to be the sleeper hit of the day! Turns out everyone already knows how to play and was really excited to see the game board and pieces out. 

Lunch was next. Everyone found a shady patch and we enjoyed some great conversation.

Then we regrouped and listened to a clip from an episode of the NPR podcast, Science Friday. The clip was called, "Ben Franklin, Sonic Explorer." Since we were about to do some sonic exploration of our own, it felt perfect. We decided to try out what they were talking about, and grabbed some wine glasses and got to it. I do love a scientific diversion:

Here's a direct link to a great video on YouTube of Dennis James (who we heard in the podcast) talking about and playing the Glass Armonica, invented by Ben Franklin after seeing the playing method we tried today. Can you imagine if we made something like this? I think it's pretty cool that the bowls all spin at the same rate, and that this speed is "right" for every size bowl. Why is that? We had a hard time sometimes finding just the right speed to move our fingers to generate the best sound. We talked about how this is a great trick to demonstrate at weddings, where kids are often entrusted with multiple fancy glasses. We also observed the water before and during our playing. We could see the vibrations in the surface of the water! So cool. 

Finally it was time for our second big project, and another sonic exploration, wind chimes. Everyone went to the stick pile to find a stick that was about one hand long. We painted the sticks, then played a little more chess and Cops & Robbers, made a few more friendship pins, and worked on journal covers while the sticks dried.

I've been hoarding metal parts skimmed off the basement work table supply for a while. I added an economy-sized tub of glass beads, some paper clips, and some baker's twine and wire. Most of this we already had kicking around in the family craft stash, some I purchased from my summer camp funds. The kids had a great time stringing stuff together, trying out their chimes in the breeze, and talking each other through variations on the process. We ended up with some amazing works of visual and sonic art!

We talked a little bit today about tinkering -- that's going to be a recurring theme for our Mondays together. We're going to lots of building, problem solving, messing around with new materials, and hacking of old junk. What's so important about tinkering? Here's a link to a TED talk about tinkering school, and about trusting kids to follow their instinct to play and invent. Exploration and experimentation is the path to invention and innovation! We also believe that Do It Together works better and can be so much more fun than Do It Yourself. "Tinkering is like... steampunk!" I heard this as we built wind chimes today. Yes! Steampunk is based in the time of our newly industrialized Western civilization. We want to help these kids along the path toward becoming the inventors of today! 

By now, we were in our last hour of camp. We shared a snack of cheese, grapes, carrots, and hummus. We worked a little on the fine social art of getting the food you want that's across the table. Last but not least, we spent some time reflecting on the day. I did a check-in with everyone on the format of the day. Too much, too little? Everyone agreed it felt pretty much just right. There were some good comments about the projects and chess. It was too hot for a lot of the kind of free play that involves lots of running, so I think everyone was happy with some directed activities in the shade. We talked about remembering to bring a book to read, and how that's always a free time option if you get too hot or just aren't up for a running game. Finally, we split up and each spent a little time writing in our journals (or here on the blog, HI!). I asked the kids to just write about and/or draw something they really enjoyed today. Some finished early, and I enlisted them in the cleanup. Soon parents arrived and we all said, "See you tomorrow!"