Week 4 was a ton of fun as we focused on our theme of sound! We started off, of course, with a tour of the farm for all our new campers, and our existing campers helped to lead the way! A visit with our goats and chickens gets everyone going and we got to work right away planting tomatillos in the garden and harvesting all the yummy cucumbers that were hiding under the leaves, in addition to carrots and broccoli!
Micaela started the week with a talk about sound waves and we made pan flutes out of straws to experiment with how our ears registered the longer waves through the longer straws and the shorter waves through the shorter ones. Some groups experimented with straws of varying width and different materials, to see how the sound was affected. The results were pretty cool!
Fina continued on Tuesday with a talk about echolocation and which animals use this cool adaptation! The children tried echolocating with a partner, and we made blindfolds for fun listening games modeled after echolocating animals!
Jazmine discussed sound and the different ways it is used in cultures across the globe on Wednesday, and we all played some ancient Aztec rhythms together while learning about time signature. Then we worked on making rain sticks, and experimenting with different sized objects inside to make different sounds.
On Thursday, Julia SHOWED us some sound waves with a really cool dancing rice demonstration (visible on our instagram @philliesbridgefarmcamp) and we discussed how sound is used in nature and specifically whether or not plants use sound. We sat down quietly for a few minutes and took some time to think about all the sounds we could hear on the farm, and the children each made a sound map. Then each of us planted some bean seeds and sent home an experiment to see if the plant that gets spoken to grows better than one that doesn’t! We’d love to hear your results!
We finished up the week on Friday with a discussion from Lucy about how animals use sound. She demonstrated a few different animal communications, and we played a guessing game involving deciding between alarm calls, territorial calls, or courting calls. We then headed out to the trail to listen and learn! Each group stopped at a different part of the trail and we tried to identify the calls we heard.
In addition to all our themed activities, we took some time to play a LOT of games on the lawn, with “Zookeeper” being a popular one this week, as well as charades! We also found some mushrooms that made some funky spore prints and a couple of robin’s eggs! Our volunteers helped us repair the chicken coop, and all of our groups took some time to participate in the building of our sustainable roundhouse, by preparing the cedar cordwood! More to come on that front soon…
In the meantime, thanks to all for a great week at camp! We very much enjoyed our time with your children and look forward to seeing everyone again soon!
