Zoo Vet July 7-11, 2025 Dear Families, This week, veterinarians learned the essentials of caring for and studying zoo animals.  Monday On Monday, vets created a 3D zoo out of cardboard, thinking carefully about the kinds of habitats different animals require. Spark's Ark came and showed the campers a variety of animals that he is rehabilitating.  Tuesday On Tuesday, vets researched animals in the wild and began creating a class mural to reflect their learning. Campers also practiced being zoo vets with stuffed animals.  Wednesday On Wednesday, each vet picked an animal to do more research on, and created a habitat specific to that animal's needs.  Thursday On Thursday, campers enjoyed a field trip to Gray Wildlife park.  Friday On Friday, campers reviewed their learning from the week, and enjoyed water balloons!

DaVinci Diner July 7-11, 2025 Dear Families, This week, chefs stayed busy creating a variety of delicious cuisine!  Monday On Monday, campers decorated aprons to use across the week. They also designed their dream restaurants and made meringue. Here were the learning takeaways from this cooking experience:  How to separate an egg How to listen for a change in noise from the beaters: a true chef can hear it and know when their meringue is done! Baking is all about chemical reactions. The egg whites, when beaten, mix with the air and take on a whole new consistency.  It is possible to under and over whip the meringue. BE CAREFUL ! Lastly, in almost any baking dish, you will find salt and vanilla. Believe it or not, salt actually makes sweets sweeter because the salt's tartness brings out the sweetness, and vanilla doesn’t taste good on its own but it is aromatic, and will once again bring out the sweetness and leave your dish smelling great. Tuesday On Tuesday we made bread...

 Jurassic Giants June 23-27, 2025 Dear Families, This week archeologists had a blast exploring our prehistoric world. Be sure to check out all the exciting activities from our week.  Monday On Monday, paleontologists studied the history of the dinosaurs, and looked across the different eras (Paleozoic, mesozoic, cenozoic). We made dinosaur trading cards to study different kinds of dinosaurs.  Tuesday On Tuesday, we looked more closely into fossils and the important information we glean from them. We made salt-dough fossils and practiced chiseling our salt dough "rocks" to discover the dinos within.  Wednesday On Wednesday, scientists got crafty as they created 3D box dinosaurs! Campers selected a dinosaur to build, made a sketch of their plan, and then got busy constructing. Thursday On Thursday, we learned about the extinction of the dinosaurs. We made alka-seltzer volcanoes.  Friday On Friday, we reviewed all our learning from the week, and then had fun with w...

 Monday  Before digging into all the amazing sharks in our curriculum, we just learned about what makes a shark a shark! We talked about how they have 2 dorsal fins, the side-to-side swishing tale, the and the gills and pectoral fins.  We discussed the endangered list:  -Not enough data -Least concern -Near threatened -Threatened  -Vulnerable  -Endangered -Critically endangered -Extinct in the wild  -Extinct Once we set the scene, we focused on two sharks for Monday, Blue Sharks and Lemon Sharks. Both sharks utilize countershading, a camouflage technique where the shark is white on bottom and the color of the sand, or the water on top.  We designed our own sharks (some silly, some more scientific) and did some painting.  After lunch, we headed off to the beach to enjoy the water. We even found some horseshoe crabs! Tuesday Today was MONSTER SHARK DAY!!! We learned about the Goblin Shark, the Greenland Shark, and the Cookie Cutter Shark. All t...

 Monday Today was all about learning how to be a resourceful artist. We learned that we can use household items around us to make different art mediums. Today we used eye shadow, Caribic powder, and a textile medium base to create shimmery eye shadow paint. Late on we learned that we can use our own body as art utensils in our group foot and finger painting project. We ended with the concept of using our body as the canvas, with some awesome face painting! Tuesday What a special treat today. The founder of DaVinci Experience, Judy Crosby, came in to do painting demos for the children and talk about earth pigments and homemade paints. Judy holds an art degree from the University of Southern Maine and loves to share her vast knowledge in painting with the children. Later on, the kids got to try their own hand in earth paint, collecting soils and items from the woods to make paints and paint brushes. We learned about why different soils are different colors and got creative with our ...