The Child Unique Montessori School & Montessori Elementary School of Alameda (MESA)'s

Destination Imagination: Creativity & Curiosity 2016

Session 2

DINOSAUR CAMP

Encinal

Pacific

Dear Parents

When traveling back in time, the best place to start is at the beginning. Therefore, we began our first circle-time discussion with "What is a Dinosaur?" Campers learned that there are several kinds of prehistoric reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era (the "Age of Reptiles") and that the group called dinosaurs includes all the animals that evolved from the very first dinosaur. We talked about similar characteristics of all dinosaurs, as well as the unique characteristics of individual dinosaurs.

This led to later discussion of how dinosaurs walk, which, of course, led to a discussion of dinosaur bones, which of course led to follow-up discussions later in the week about fossils. This is summer camp so discussions were not long and were all followed by fun and creative activities to reinforce knowledge. Campers had a great time completing bone matching and picture matching games to help them learn the names and group types of the various dinosaurs. We all had fun listening to the "We are the Dinosaurs" song and learning the "A, B, C, D Dinosaur" song.

Dino-Art is Dino-riffic! Pacific campers made Dinosaur Head Bands that included long spiny tails, and Dinosaur Popsicle Puppets and Balloon Beings. They created flour, salt and water Dinosaur bones, which are being baked as your read. Encinal campers will do this project next week.

There are so many super cool items on the shelves for children to play with and learn from, such as a group Dinosaur Monopoly game, There are dinosaur stencils, tracing and coloring items and a work for creating a dinosaur habitat. There are so many colorful matching picture games and dinosaur puzzles. There is an abundance of great books on dinosaurs to choose from and it is impressive how many children read and/or review the pictures in our cozy reading corners.

Next week, Encinal campers will be making Dinosaur Dioramas. Really, what is camp without a diorama? Children will be creating dinosaur skeleton drawings with both dried pasta and Q-tips on black paper. The fun will continue with the "Naming Game of Dinosaurs," making fossils out of dried pasta and clay, creating Brontosaurus crafts, learning more about dinosaurs in their habitat, doing a "Dorothy the Dinosaur" project, creating T-Rex puppets and doing a dinosaur hunt in the park. Looking forward to more fun next week! Thank you!

Dear Summer Parents,

We have decided to send our Enewsletter for all sessions to all of our Summer Parents so that parents of children enrolled in the current camp can see what their children are doing and parents of children enrolled in a different camp can get a good idea of what each of our camps has to offer. If you prefer to be removed from our list please email the Encinal office at thechildunique@yahoo.com.

If you would like to sign up for any of our camps, please visit our website and go to the "Rates & Calendar" Form page to download, fill out and return a copy of the "Summer Brochure." We look forward to a great summer!