Because EVERYONE at camp this week was so awesome...we decided to give EVERYONE a special camp award this week.
The Jr. Piccasso group really was exceptionally great and we can only hope that the rest of camp is just as fun!
Above our counselor Heather is passing out extra special awards for each camper. Everyone cheered for eachother and it was a great way to end the week!

Here we are all proudly displaying our awards!
Everyone say "we love caaammmppp!"

Group Hug!!

Thanks for a WONDERFUL WEEK everyone!
We would love to hear some of your favorite memories from camp. Feel free to follow our blog all summer long.

We hope to see you soon.

Love,

Your Friends at Blithewold

A favorite artist at camp has always been Jackson Pollock. The reason is simple, we get to make a big MESS! Above Heather showing some images of Pollock's work, in order to give the campers inspiration.


We weren't kidding about that mess! But that is have the fun of summer camp. We apologize for the paint splatters, parents! At least they each got a cool backpack to remember camp:)

Either Kelly has the most colorful freckles I have ever seen or she just really enjoyed abtract expressionism:)

The artists at work...

There is never a dull moment at camp...
Today we were so fortunate to have local Artisit Joanne Murman come to camp and teach us about the difference between warm and cool colors. We put this knowledge to the test by drawing Vincent Van Gogh Sunflowers with warm colors only.

Before the painting begins, a very important step is to first draw out the image in pencil. We learned a few new drawing techniques such as overlapping and using unexpected shapes. The kids did a great job following the directions!

For cool colors, Joanne showed the campers a photo of Van Gogh's Iris's. Above Colleen shows off her gorgeous iris, which she made by painting with only cool colors.

Joanne is so talented an she sure knows a lot about art. It was so fun having her at camp, good thing she will be coming back every week!

Day 3 still had a lot more activities planned for the afternoon! Above is a nice shot of camp pals Ailsa, Nate, Mia, Pepe and Cecilia! By the end of the week at camp, we were all great friends!

This afternoon we had a special treat, Garden intern Lilah Anderson took us on a special tour of the vegetable garden at Blithewold. As you can see it is jam packed with gorgeous fresh produce and herbs that the kids got to smell and taste.

After the tour, campers were able to each plant a seed of their choice with pots from our very own greenhouse.

Lilah helped water in the plants and shared a few gardening tips.

Do you have a vegetable garden at home? What types of things do you grow?

Happy planting!!!

During our visit from the Haffenraffer,the kids were able to try making there very own cornmeal. We each had a chance to stomp the corn 5 times. We grinded away for quite a while and still came know where close to making corn meal. We really gained an appreciation for the "art" of cooking as a native American.

Next, week learned a little bit about a native American pow wow. We learned that the drum is the heart beat of the pow wow and the kids were able to all try beating along to the rhythm of a native chant.

The campers did a great job keeping up with the beat. They also tried very hard not to laugh at the music they first thought of as "strange" but embraced is as just being different.

Geralynn's visit ended with a craft activity, where each camper made a wompom necklace and then learned the "alligator dance". This dance is a friendship dance, that is still commonly danced at pow wows.

Have you ever been to a pow wow?

Day number 3 started by weaving these lovely flowers. Here Kaia proudly displays her work! Way to go Kaia:)

Here, Thomas is showing of his Pablo Picasso portrait of yours truly! I can really see the resemblence. Most of the emphasis was placed on my large shell earrings:)

We were very lucky to have a special Visit from Geralynn who is an Anthropologist for the Haffenraffer Museum. We learned all about the native peoples of NE and there various cultures, art forms and fascinating history. Above campers stand around a map of all the New England tribes. The campers were amazed to see how little space the native people have left.

Next, Geralynn shared their history by showing us native American artifacts. We saw everything from food, clothing and shelter to music art and even learned the "alligator dance"!

Day 1 at camp was sooo fun that the counselors actually forgot to take photos...whoops!
But I can tell you this, we took enough pics the rest of the week to make up for it.

Although we don't have evidence to prove it, on the first day of camp, we started the day with lots of intros and get-to-know you activities. The campers did a GREAT job making our new Head Counselor Heather Angell feel right at home. They were also thrilled to see that the Grabert Sisters were back again this year! Joanna will be serving yet another year as Assistant Counselor and her younger sister Jeanna has moved up the ladder from camper to CIT (counselor in training).

After spending most of the morning getting to know eachother, we spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to stay cool via the sprinkler and playing games such as Drip, Drip Drop. We also went on an amazing flower hunt in the cutting garden to find the perfect flower to paint after a lesson on artist Georgia O'Keefe!




Moving on to day 2: Above is a shot of our very own Camp Gallery Hop! Lead by our own MC, Mister Toby Rein, the campers hopped from table to table learning about eachother's abstract paintings, much like the work of artist Miro.

Adorned with "the new fashion" a.k. paper plate hats, campers thouroughly enjoyed a debriefing of why each artiste selected to use various objects such as feathers, sequin and even SOCKS for their abstract peices. Campers really dug deep into their right brain and pulled out creative titles for their work such as " MixaTRAIN", "Mixed Up Cat", and "Hand Petting Cat"!
Impressed yet parents?

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Above you see campers hanging on every word as fellow camper, Colleen Walsh, explained her colorful abstract.

You can almost hear the deep thoughts as these artists reflect on Jeanna Graberts picture.

Do you have a favorite memory from camp? Do you have a favorite artist that we did not mention?
We would love to hear all about them!

The first week at Buds & Blossoms Summer Camp was H-O-T! But the campers took the heat with stride and made the most of their 4 action packed days of camp. We had an awesome group of kids this week and it was a laugh a minute. I couldn't think of a better group to kick off camp!

We hope you have fun enjoying some of the MANY photos and video clips we took over the past week. Feel free to make funny comments and share memories on our camp blog all summer long!

July 6 - 9 : Junior Picasso Week

Hey Campers and Parents!! What an awesome first week of camp!

Stay tuned, new photos and video clips of our fun filled week will be up soon.
Be sure to check back soon!

p.s. We love when you respond to our posts, also feel free to pass this link on to family and friends.

Garden Critters - Last Day!

WE can not believe it is Friday already! Not to mention, the LAST DAY OF SUMMER CAMP:(
But Fridays sure are fun at Blithewold because it is FFF - FAMILY FUN FRIDAY!!!

Today we had a special performance by the Tandem Tellers!
We got to sing and dance, we even got our faces painted and made insect crafts.

Today was so much fun that we are all sad to see it end, but the good news is... we will see you again next summer!

Farewell for now, friends! It has been a fantastic summer.

On behalf of Blithewold, thank you all so very much!

Garden Critters - Day 4

Rainy days would definately not be as much fun if we didn't have a GIANT wedding tent to play under!

The rain sure didn't stop us from having a good time! We did pinecone experiments, made insect finger puppets played games under the tent, planted terrariums and ate worms! haha just checking to see if you were paying attention - they were gummy worms, gotcha!

Worms! Gummy worms, that is!

We finished the day by working on our camp mural project!

See you tomorrow, we hope to see the sun, too!

Garden Critters - Day 3

Haha! Look at all those killer bees! WE sure get crafty at camp, but that's not all, we learn a lot too.
Today we started the day with a special spiders and insects slide show.
After that, it was off to the frog pond where we caught a whopping 13 frogs!! Ribbit!

After a nice relaxing movie, Tales from the Hive, it was time to play ball! Kick ball and freeze tag, was the name of the game ... check out these skills!

Regina in action!

Look at him go!