Camp Mommawatchi

Last week, we had our 4th annual Camp Mommawatchi with Amber & her kids. Four years ago, it started out as a way of survival...Lew & Chris were heading out of town on a work retreat, leaving us to fend for ourselves with three one-year-olds and one three-year-old (and 2 dogs and a cat!). So Amber and I devised a plan. We decided to spend the 3 days together doing fun things with our kids, just like at summer camp. But every camp needs a name, and sometimes they have Indian names. Thanks to Amber's creative mind, Camp Mommawatchi was born ("mommawatchi" meaning mommas watching their kids). Four years later, we are still going strong, improving our camp every year. We have themes and plan all our activities around that one theme. We design a logo and make our own t-shirts. In the past we've made the kids pillowcases or throw pillows with their pictures on them. This year's theme was "Funology", a science camp. Here are some pics from our camp:

We started out the camp by decorating science journals. After every activity, they "recorded their observations" in their journal (just like Sid the Science Kid does!)

Our team of scientists!

The whole crew

The Diet Coke & Mentos experiment - Right after this picture was taken, Will backs up because he is getting sprayed by Diet Coke. Then he knocks over the 2-liter behind him and gets even more wet.

What's a science camp without a volcano? Here is our red gelatin volcano that they discovered bubbled even more when they blew on it.

Biology 101: Owl pellet dissection! Totally disgusting but it was something that everyone loved. We all found a skull and lots of bones.

The kids took their goggles very seriously.

Day 2 started out by making "wormeries" (a house for worms!)

Night crawlers!

Kids with their wormeries - We stored the wormeries in the basement, and the kids checked to see if the worms had dug tunnels, which they did.

Will & Chloe

Jasmine & Jake

Physics 101: Egg Drop

The kids built their egg houses, and then we dropped the houses from the top of the playground.

Ready to drop their eggs

Jake was the egg champion, who never had an egg break. He was so proud.

Aren't these the cutest t-shirts???

Everyone with their unbroken eggs (round 2)

I just couldn't resist adding this picture :)

We had a "Pizza Pizza" night for dinner...homemade pizza and dessert pizza. We also tried cooking in a mason jar and made chocolate cake.

Playing with Magic Ooze (cornstarch & water)

I don't have pictures for these, but we also made our own "cup" phones with string and they actually worked! Amazing. We took a "field trip" to the pool and discovered which objects floated or sank. For our astronomy lesson, we made our own constellations and a star magnet for the daddies. It was a great time, but Amber and I sure were tired by the end! Can't wait for next year :)