The first weeks of summer we play with soil and pretend to be farmers, planting seeds that need warm soil and lots of sun. In this session the children will tend the garden beds and all of the life within them. The bug-life is abundant in a garden bed, and the gentle and respectful way a gardener plants their seeds harmoniously with the bug-life, will be a focus of this session. We will also learn what plants eat and the joy that comes from seeing a seed sprout up bright and green out of the rich brown soil.

We embark on the path to discovery through our senses. In this session, the children will use their senses to discover hidden wonders of the Moraine Farm woods. Through hiking, observation, and STEAM based activities, we will find out what signs animals leave as they work and travel through the farm. Following some of these signs, we will find animal homes and patterns of survival. Along the way, we will discover our own abilities to move, balance, navigate, and regulate our levels of exertion.

This week we will explore the colors of the rainbow with stories, crafts, games and a delicious fruit salad.

Row, row, row your boat…This week we will build sandcastles, play in water, make our own treasure chest and go on a treasure hunt. Stories and s’mores too!

Good work and good intentions allows us to experience a harmony with our surroundings and find joy in each other. In this session the children will learn how to tell when a vegetable is ready to harvest, and how to carefully and kindly gather the delicious food that comes from the earth. We will also learn what to do with the food we gather, and how to keep the garden happy in the later weeks of summer. Useful crafts and pieces of art made from the land will also be a focus of this session.

From giant antlers to tiny wings, come and learn about the fascinating features that help animals survive! Campers will spend the week exploring the natural landscape around our school and find the amazing critters who share our land.

This one is for the birds! Experience the wonderful world of our winged friends. From tweets to beaks, campers will enjoy a soaring week of fun!

Explore, dig, observe and learn to be an entomologist by turning our land into a laboratory! Discover all the jumping, wriggling, flying and swimming insects that are living all around us.

Break out the magnifying glass and grab your notebook because we’re looking for clues! There’s evidence of life all around us and if you don’t look closely you might miss it. Look for footprints, animals scat, and even owl pellets to solve nature’s mysteries.

Put on your hard hats and get ready to design and create! This week campers will build contraptions and structures to achieve goals using only materials found in nature!

We are building aquaponics with STEAM! (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Design, and Mathematics)

A multi-week series of learning how to build a brand new aquaponics system from scratch that uses hungry guppies in an aquarium to to feed veggies, herbs, microgreens, and flowers the nutrients they need to grow at 2-3 times the speed that plants would grow in a typical garden!

A major component of this camp is PCL (Polycaprolactone), a kid-friendly bioplastic that is both strong and capable of making all kinds of things! Who knows what we’ll create? (Those who involved in the “Bioplastics and Boardgames” camp last summer will hit the ground running, as PCL is the same stuff we were using then!)

Using PCL, children will be learning how to prototype their own designs, create (and repair) watertight containers for the plants, figure out how to engineer a pumping system, care for the fish and plants, and see how all these ideas relate to the world around us! 

(Note to parents: This is a non-repetitive program – each week presents new challenges and exciting ideas. Students will be given challenges that match their age and skills)

(see above – each week will present new challenges and ideas!)

(see above – each week will present new challenges and ideas!)