LABOR DAY WEEKEND 2013
Made it through Labor Day weekend with a full campground made up
of mostly kids ….. or so it seemed.
Getting into full swing, we opened up Friday with a Nature Bingo game garnering the
children who had checked in Thursday or early Friday.
Saturday morning was coffee and donuts and hot chocolate for
the kids. Crafts around 10AM with two
tables full of kids and then the second wave arrived around 10:30. Word travels fast in a campground!
Sunday opened up with coffee and donuts and another around of
craft hours. Finished off Sunday evening
with a scavenger hunt with about 50 kids involved! Everyone had a great time and most of the
craft supplies as well as the prizes were depleted.
The favorite ritual in the campground is to head for the boardwalk and the beach to watch the sunset. It's a mass exodus of campsites as campers head up the hill with chairs and camera watching their beautiful day end.
While I was watching half the campground on the beach and focusing on the sunset, Dave said, "Turn around" and there was half the campground above me!
THE CRAFT HAZE!
I was very concerned over this craft thing. Since I didn’t fully understand what we would be doing as Hosts, I didn't plan anything ahead of time. I didn’t know if I could be successful with this program, not being a "crafter".
During the first few days I met with Laurie and Dale, hosts at the Channel CG, to see what they were doing and we explored surrounding areas stopping in at Grand Haven SP where I bee lined it to the hosts there to get some suggestions. Apparently I was the only one worried …. but they all took “the class” required of hosts who want to volunteer for more than two years in Michigan. This class was held the beginning of April up here and obviously not convenient for Dave and I to attend.
So, several trips to the Dollar Tree, Dollar Store and Family Dollar Store I had a cache of supplies to chose from. We are given a budget of $150 and I didn’t even come close to using it.
Laurie & Dale chose to do a specific craft project with the kids whereas we were more free form – lay out the supplies and let them chose what to do. The only craft project we did was the Lighthouse which was simple.
So, what did I learn these past few weeks?
#1 favorite art tool is
GLITTER GLUE! Kids love it and get it
everywhere! The globs they use to
decorate their butterflies or crowns or bookmarks do not dry in one’s
lifetime! It is easy to smudge causing
great consternation among the artists trying to preserve their creations while
other kids reach across their projects dragging their hands for more glitter
glue. Everyone gets a paper plate to
carry their artwork home so the glitter glue doesn’t get smudged from passing
air!
STICKERS!
Can’t have enough stickers. Even
better if they glow in the dark stickers.
Pom Poms do not glue down
very well unless you use a half a bottle of glue. Once they fall off, they collect sand, dirt
and whatever else is on the table while being re-glued. Little pom poms make their way into the dirt
under the table. Ditch the pom poms!
Pipe Cleaners are lots of
fun and kids make everything from geodesic domes to bracelets and necklaces.
Rock painting with nail
polish is the funnest craft but make sure there is plenty of nail polish
remover because the kids get it EVERYWHERE!
Even the boys enjoyed painting rocks.
LIGHTHOUSE – using a red
solo cup and cutting down a clear plastic cup for dome; using white surgical
tape for the stripe and black masking tape cut into rectangles for the door and
windows. Once done, they can place a led
light in the dome and it will light up.
Or a hole can be punctured in the top and a glow stick can be stuck
through to glow. Wondered what the kids
would do once the lighthouse was constructed. …………. The girls glitzed them up with stickers and
glitter glue. They glued the cups to
small plates and made picket fences around the lighthouses. The boys put glow in the dark stickers on the
lighthouses. It was a fun project that
turned out well.
Limit the bottles of glue
you put out on the table ….. some kids get frustrated with the stream from
squeezing and open the entire bottle which then spills off the project and onto
the table and then onto every other project.
One bottle per area limits access and gives you time to get to the glue
bottle and help!
Do not allow drinks at the table. One spilled chocolate milk destroys an entire table of crafts. Liquid travels at a very high rate of speed!!
Amazing what kids can
create with pasta – jewelry out of rigatoni and elbow macaroni, painted
butterflies from bow tie pasta.
PINWHEELS using small
paper plates. Kids colored both sides of
the plates and I cut it into a spiral.
The spiral twirled with their artwork and they could hang it on their
awnings. Amazing the color combinations
these kids came up with.
The world is made up of
very creative children all ages. The
girls love to glitz things up and the boys stick with primary colors!
I think I’ve got it now! Guess we’ll see if anymore kids camp over the
next two weekends!
Monday rolled around and everyone left except for families
with small children who don’t have to be home for the first day of school on
Tuesday. That left us with about 30
sites occupied and a very empty campground!
Temperatures took a dive starting off around 70 and ending up
around 60. We hiked the Lost Lake Trail
passing the luge in the Muskegon Sports Complex. It is quite an undertaking.
The fiberglass luge is opened all summer for the public. The one that is higher up and longer will fill with snow and be used all winter.
Chairs -- great idea for those extra cross country skis!
The trails we took to Lost Lake are cross country skiing trails. They crisscross the state park any number of times.
LOST LAKE
Monday night was a quiet, quiet, quiet night!
Tuesday 9/3 we took off for Saugatuck, a harbor town south of Holland. Dave promised he would stop and I could get out and walk some of the stores rather than viewing them at 35 mph!
KALAMAZOO RIVER
Saugatuck is on the Kalamazoo River. Apparently there was another town here, Singapore....but it now belongs to Lake Michigan.
Saugatuck is a pretty town made up of small arty type stores and restaurants.
We
shopped a bit, bought a few things that will look nice on our screen porch and
then stopped for a bite of lunch. We'd seen all there was so headed back
to our now quiet campground.
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