We are still building our food supplies to donate to charity – our goal is 500 items. Please bring any items you can to help us reach our goal and have Camp Director Chris Horan’s head shaved for charity. Thanks to all the parents for sending your camper to the J Day Camps and specifically Maccabi Sports Camp – we truly appreciate and enjoy every moment.
Camp Essman Gadol It was another awesome week at camp! Our theme this week was Nature, and everyone enjoyed the activities related to it. Campers had fun going on a nature scavenger hunt. They found things like seeds, leaves, and pine cones. In Art, the campers got to make their own pet rocks. It was exciting to watch their creativity as they turned an ugly rock into a cute animal. In Music, the campers sang a variety of songs. The nature theme continued into TAG as the campers talked about The Lorax, and how humans affect our environment. Then they created their own pictures of Truffula trees. In sports this week, we played a variety of games that the campers loved. Especially fun was a game created by one of our own campers! Cooking was delicious as always, as the campers got to make their own taco dip. Our Wacky Wednesday this week “dress like a hippie day.” It was great to see camp so full of bright tie-dyes! We interacted with animal puppets in Nature with Chuck, and learned some fun facts about animals.
2013 JCC Day Camp Splatter
Camp Essman Katan
June 28, 2013 / 20 Tamuz 5773 Vol. 7 - Issue 4
Who can believe we have finished week four of Camp Essman Katan? The summer is flying by and we are having so much fun! At the pool, our campers are becoming little fish. Everyone is learning so much in their swimming lessons. This week in Nature, we got to listen to the ocean with Miss Debby’s sea shells. In TAG this week, campers learned about Dr. Suess’s the Lorax. We all made our own little nature world. We missed Miss Sapir this week! She went to Nashville with the teen camp. But we sang lots of songs with Miss Sally and we made dirt cups with gummy worms in cooking with Miss Debby! Yummm.
Nature is in our backyard Article by Chuck Hardy The symbol this week was Love of Nature, or Ahava Sh’mirat Haguf. J Day Campers have the opportunity to explore nature, which gives our camps a “built-in” programming advantage over other camps. The acreage at the campground at the Millstone Campus has almost any type of habitat one would find in Missouri: woodland, scrubland, grassland and wetland. There are many interesting plants and animals which either live there permanently or pass through; nature puts on a show which is sometimes subtle, but ever-changing.
The very best part of the week was on Friday when we celebrated National Mud Day! We played in the mud and slid on the slip-n-slide! We had the time of our lives! We welcomed a new friend, Mason, and had to say goodbye to our friend Payton. We can’t wait to see what next week will bring!
This week, campers helped make some changes to the environment to make it more suitable for ourselves and the wildlife. We planted bamboo in a bare spot; perhaps in a few years we will have material for crafts grown on site. We planted sunflowers to feed birds, and planted a shade wildflower garden in the old nature area. The wildflowers will provide nectar for bees and hummingbirds, and then seeds for birds when the flowers go to seed. We have also been checking on the progress of our two Pawpaw trees. The Pawpaw is the largest fruit indigenous to North America. While few Americans have eaten one, Thomas Jefferson prized them, growing them at Monticello and taking the seeds to Paris so he could grow them while he was there. The leaves are eaten by Zebra Swallowtails, and the bark contains compounds useful as a natural pesticide and compounds which show promise in fighting tumors. Pawpaws are an under-story tree which spread, so perhaps we will have a stand of them someday.
On Friday, our camp traveled to Powder Valley to enjoy a day among nature. The campers loved walking through the woods and seeing wildlife up close. It was another amazing week here at camp!
We also put two bird feeders up this week, one with seed and one with suet cakes. Woodpeckers are very fond of the latter. In past years, we had a hummingbird feeder, but this always filled with huge black ants. We did plant wildflowers, so hopefully the hummingbirds will be content with those.
Shabbat Shalom
Staenberg Family Complex 2 Millstone Campus Drive St. Louis, MO 63146
Marilyn Fox Building
16801 Baxter Road Chesterfield, MO 63005
314-432-5700 jccstl.org
A kindergarten group at the Millstone Campus got an unexpected thrill
Monday: Workers were cutting the grass on the ball fields, and apparently a deer was hiding in the greenery near the tennis courts. Right at noon, the doe took off and ran west into the grass, leaping the fence . . . But then pausing, looking back to see what had scared her, and finally grazing a bit before moving on! On Thursdays, Chuck Hardy, our nature specialist, heads to the Fox Building, and although the Fox Building does not have the acreage that the Millstone Campus has, there are interesting things to see in the outdoors there. The Fox Building sits on a bluff overlooking Bonhomme Creek and the old Rock Island railroad tracks. Buzzards kettle over the bluffs; there is scrubland and a stand of sand willows along the edge of the playing fields. A variety of animals leave trails into and out of the vegetation there. Although the camp season is short, campers do get to witness the changing of seasons during the summer. When camp starts, spring flowers are still blooming; there are May Apples (a.k.a. American Mandrake) and Linden trees in bloom. Birds are sitting on their eggs; the mornings are sometimes so cool that campers are reluctant to get in the pool. Then comes the heat for which Saint Louis is famous. There is still a lot of summer left when camp ends, but still, young birds have left the nests and are starting to congregate and give some thought to flying south. Spiders are getting busy catching the bugs they will need if they are to survive the winter; spiders are creepy to begin with, but the increased number of webs one sees in the late summer and fall may account for their popularity in Halloween decorations. By the last week of camp, yellow leaves fallen from the walnut trees carpet the ground. Soon, the campers are back in school, and the J staff is planning for the following year’s camp. Happy Camping, Joey Boime, J Day Camp Director
Discover the Spirit