MMS Summer Camp News 2013

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What is geocaching?

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Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPSenabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache.

Pictured right, Coach Cam’s Great Outdoors Camp visit Alfred A. Ring Park.

A Weekly Insight into MMS Summer Enrichment Camp 2013

Summer Newsletter Week One: June 10—June 14, 2013

Fun times at “the hop”!

Our first week of camp was full of field trips, geocaching, painting, photography, circus fun and more!

In this issue >>>

Under The Big Top Art Explorations Art Adventures Digital Photography I Digital Photography II The Great Outdoors

Under the Big Top with Ms. Crystal Sorrow

Summer camp at MMS >>>

Under the Big Top Camp

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Ms. Crystal Sorrow and Ms. Christina Wegner Ms. Summer Pitt and Ms. Ursula Hargood

The first week of summer camp was a blast as students in the Little House enjoyed fun under the big top! The class featured a circus tent that students could sit inside and choose to work or read a book. Circus themed dress-up items were available during work time. The students enjoyed playing musical instruments to circus music and having creative movement. They pretended they were elephants, lions, clowns, trapeze

artists, ballerinas on horses, and dogs performing tricks. The students even learned a circus song.

Next week will be “Play Ball!� a sports themed week featuring sports related works and activities.

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Art Explorations Camp

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Ms. Elizabeth Falls and Ms. Jessica Pythko I love art and the children love art! Our first week of Summer Camp has been great! The children have enjoyed exploring many different kinds of art media! In the Montessori tradition it is the child’s own original and unique art that is preferred. This gives the child not only a very good self-image, but skill at both observation and draftsmanship. As Dr. Montessori said, “we cannot teach a person to be an artist but we can help him develop an eye that sees, a hand that obeys and a soul that feels”.

Art is essential in the environment of the child. It is a way of approaching life and it cannot be separated from every other element of life. At this age, children are capable of working with many forms of art. The children have learned this week that no two pieces of art work are alike! Their work is their own and unique!

Here are some activities we enjoyed this first week of Summer Camp: Art Activities: Drawing with pastels on sandpaper to create designs that are then heat transferred onto paper Push-pinning (develops fine motor skills) cats and dogs and then creating a picture with them Still Life Painting with Watercolors

Working with Clay to create a jewelry dish Finger/Thumbprint Painting Music and Movement: The children also sang and learned some new songs, maybe you have heard some of these at home: “The Worm Workout”; “Tony Chestnut”; “Move Fast, Move Slow”; “Five Frogs”; “Star bright” (a song about a horse); and “One Small Voice” (learning some sign language).

The children also learned how to use two musical instruments this week, the triangle (used in the song “Frere Jacques” and the sounding bowl.

Their favorite song was “Alligator Stomp”!

The children have also been making new friends and we are looking forward to the remainder of Summer Camp! More fun is yet to come! Have a nice weekend and next week we will be exploring the world of Science (i.e., experiments)!

Sincerely,

Ms. Elizabeth and Ms. Jessica

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Summer camp at MMS >>>

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The Great Outdoors Camp Coach Cam Parker and Ms. Samantha Mink

http://www.geocaching.com

The idea for this week was to remind students that summers are meant to be spent outside. Discovering trails, hopping in the nearest watering hole, skipping rocks and more. However, we added a technological twist as we discovered the joys of geocaching. Geocaching is finding objects hidden in natural locations using GPS coordinates (and smartphones). Imagine Huck Finn with a phone in his hand! At each location we sought geocaches, usually finding more than one. On Monday we took a quick trip to Alfred E. Ring park where Madhumati found our first geocache, and Nikolai and Emilee found one INSIDE a post.

We did miss out on finding a difficult one just before we left.

explored waterfalls and found multiple geocaches. Thursday we overcame the disappointment of the swimming area being closed by dipping our feet off the dock, walking over a swaying suspension bridge, and Anirudh found the only geocache in the park. We capped off the week by checking out critters and fishing at the UF Fisheries followed by Splash Day in the afternoon.

It was a great week and the kids seemed to truly enjoy being in the elements. To continue the mission, campers were encouraged to use our login on geocaching.com. The login is MMSKnights and the password is “Millhopper�.

You can also use this login on a variety of geocaching apps.

Tuesday we ventured to Fanning Springs for swimming, feeding fish and learning how to skip rocks on the river. That was followed by a long trip to Rainbow Springs, where we Treasures found in geocaches

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Fun in the sun...>>>

The Great Outdoors Camp

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Photography Camp

Summer camp at MMS >>>

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Mr. Richard Aslanian and Ms. Rasha Choudar Photographed by Aqua, 6th grade.

Emmanuel focuses for a perfect

During our week in photography camp the students have practiced and learned many aspects of using a camera. We discussed perspective, composition, and the functions of a digital camera. We enjoyed our field trip to the Santa Fe Zoo to take photos of the variety of wildlife. Also we spent some time outdoors around our school and in the SFC field nearby to work on landscapes and nature. Some of our in class lessons were seeing the work of past photographers such as Ansel Adams and Lewis Hine. Another activity we enjoyed was going into the MMS studio to take portraits of our friends using several different ide-

Say

Chee

se!!!

Mr. Richard looks over Brooklyn’s photo collage.

as and techniques. It was a great week wrapped up by creating a multi-dimensional photo project, a personalized photo box and several framed photos on display for everyone to see our work. We encourage our photographers to keep practicing their skills and continuing to develop into great photographers.

Photographed by Brooklyn, 2nd grade

Photographed by Clara, 2nd grade

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Art Adventures Camp

Art is fun...>>> Ms. Rebecca McCuller and Ms. Widline Senecharles Ms. Kyra Akay and Ms. Kayleigh Bush

We have been having SO much fun in Art Adventures this week! We have explored the work of several famous artists including Monet, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh and Warhol. The children have painted with acrylics, water colors and finger paints, they have sketched, stamped, pasted and cut and their art portfolio's are OVERFLOWING with work. We also had a visit from local nature artist Tim McCarthy who showed the children some of his work and took a sample of their work back to his

studio to create individual t-shirts from. We can't wait to see how they turn out!

On the last day of camp we will be having an art show displaying their beautiful work. There are some great artists in our midst!

Thank you for allowing them to share their week with us!

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Discover camp...

Finding An Agent That’s Right For You

at Millhopper Montessori School Tiffany and Ben work on editing their summer camp news show.

“In Yo Face Productions.”

For past summer camp news show visit: www.millhoppertech.com Click: “In Yo Face Productions.”

In the next issue >>>

Below our Junior Counselors assist the students in Art Adventures Camp.

For information on being a Junior Counselor contact: the school at 352-375-6773.

Beginner’s Play Ball!

Little Scientists Space is The Place Woodworking

“Great Job!”

Summer Olympics

8505 NW 39th Avenue

Contact us at 352-375-6773 www.millhopper.com 8