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

Issue ONE - 2013

Summer Newsletter

In this issue >>>

Fun times at “the hop”!

A Weekly Insight into MMS Summer Enrichment Camp 2013

What is geocaching?

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor

treasure hunting game using GPS-

enabled 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.

Under the Big Top with

Ms. Crystal Sorrow

Under The Big Top

Art Explorations

Art Adventures

Digital Photography I

Digital Photography II

The Great Outdoors

Week One: June 10—June 14, 2013

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Summer camp at MMS >>> Under the Big Top Camp

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 play-

ing musical instruments to circus

music and having creative move-

ment. They pretended they were

elephants, lions, clowns, trapeze

artists, ballerinas on horses, and

dogs performing tricks. The stu-

dents even learned a circus song.

Next week will be “Play Ball!” a

sports themed week featuring

sports related works and activities.

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

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Art Explorations Camp

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 me-

dia! 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 ob-

servation and draftsmanship. As Dr.

Montessori said, “we cannot teach a per-

son 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 environ-

ment of the child. It is a way of approach-

ing 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 en-

joyed this first week of Summer Camp:

Art Activities:

Drawing with pastels on sandpaper to

create designs that are then heat trans-

ferred 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 trian-

gle (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

Ms. Elizabeth Falls and Ms. Jessica Pythko

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Summer camp at MMS >>>

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 add-ed a technological twist as we discovered the joys of geo-caching. Geocaching is finding objects hidden in natural loca-tions using GPS coordinates (and smartphones). Imagine Huck Finn with a phone in his hand! At each location we sought geocaches, usually find-ing more than one. On Mon-day we took a quick trip to Al-fred E. Ring park where Madhumati found our first ge-ocache, and Nikolai and Emi-lee found one INSIDE a post. We did miss out on finding a difficult one just before we left.

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

explored waterfalls and found multiple geocaches. Thursday we overcame the disappoint-ment 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 check-ing 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 con-tinue 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.

Coach Cam Parker and Ms. Samantha Mink

Treasures found in geocaches

The Great Outdoors Camp

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Fun in the sun...>>> The Great Outdoors Camp

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Photography Camp

Summer camp at MMS >>>

Mr. Richard Aslanian and Ms. Rasha Choudar

During our week in photography camp the

students have practiced and learned many as-

pects of using a camera. We discussed perspec-

tive, 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-

as and techniques. It was a great week wrapped

up by creating a multi-dimensional photo project,

a personalized photo box and several framed pho-

tos 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 Aqua, 6th grade.

Emmanuel focuses for a perfect Mr. Richard looks over Brooklyn’s photo collage.

Say Cheese!!! Photographed by Brooklyn, 2nd grade

Photographed by Clara, 2nd grade

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Art is fun...>>>

We have been having SO much

fun in Art Adventures this week! We

have explored the work of several fa-

mous 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!

Art Adventures Camp

Ms. Rebecca McCuller and Ms. Widline Senecharles

Ms. Kyra Akay and Ms. Kayleigh Bush

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Finding An Agent That’s Right For You

8505 NW 39th Avenue

Beginner’s Play Ball!

Little Scientists

Space is The Place

Woodworking

Summer Olympics

camp... Discover

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

In the next issue >>>

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.”

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.

at Millhopper Montessori School

“Great Job!”