Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

The Joy of Walden West Summer Camp Registration

The morning was not pretty for me.  Today was summer camp registration for Walden West, a date I'd had circled on my calendar for months, with auto-reminders coming at me once a week.

I remembered the date for weeks and then, this morning, I forgot. When I saw the reminder pop up on my phone at 7am, I flew into panic mode.

Registration opens at 7:30am and every session for 2-7 grades fills within minutes, with the exception of the week of July 4th.

I logged in, brought up the registration page and waited, my first choice session circled on the calendar beside me.

At 7:30 exactly, I refreshed my page. Scrolling quickly down to the session I wanted, I clicked the add button but nothing happened. The site was now live, but it kept asking me to enter a name.

I remember having trouble with this before -- and we've been to this camp two summers so far.

What was happening? I kept clicking add, hoping it would bring up another screen so I could then enter my kids' names, but nothing came up. I was stuck.

At this point, I may have yelled out some not-so-nice words in front of my kids. Mind you, this was at 7:30am, the time when most parents are busy getting breakfast ready and kids out the door.

So there I was, with this screen that was doing nothing while my kids were doing nothing when they ought to have been getting dressed for school. In a panic, I called my husband over. "Look at this screen, what do I do?" I cried.

"You need to put in their names in those fields right in front of you. Right there," he said, pointing out the obvious. But he added, "Welcome to a website circa 1998!"

Sure enough, the fields were there on the same screen I'd been staring out this whole time. It just doesn't pop out. All I saw was the "add" session button, that's it.

All the sessions were filling, spots left were zeroing down. The session I'd wanted was gone. The time was 7:32am.

So I went for another session and got in by the skin of my teeth. The rows of sessions were hard to eyeball and I very nearly registered my boys for two separate sessions. My hands were shaking.

I stumbled out of my office and down to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. I could barely think of what to do... my adrenaline was still racing. It's ironic to have to go through this stress just to register my sons for a week of stress free summer camp in the mountains!

Walden West is the only camp on our list that fills so quickly. The others usually have more availability because their programs are bigger and spread out amongst more locations. Walden West has one location for summer and that's it. Parents are limited to one week of camp per child unless there's availability later on.

It's crazy. I hate having to go through this just to get my kids into Walden West. But that said, even though we didn't get into my preferred week, they will have fun. Walden West is an amazing summer camp experience, the kind that kids will talk about when they're grown. It's a true summer camp, with no heavy curriculum, just kids and nature. It's probably a lot like Hidden Villa camp.

We are also going to Camp Galileo, a science camp with a curriculum. My kids love it there, too. I like to mix things up, a little bit of free roaming at Walden West and a little bit of structured camp at Camp Galileo, plus some other camps and mini vacations thrown in for good measure.

What are you doing this summer? If you registered for Walden West, do you have a method to the madness? Do you have two laptops going at registration? There was no joy in the process of registering for Walden West summer camp, none.

The take home message? For newbies, set up an account in advance so that all you need to do is the registration part on the big day. For returnees, make sure you log-in and do a registration run-through in advance, even if you've gone through registration there in years past. This will be our 3rd summer at Walden West and I still didn't remember what to do on registration day. I'd totally forgotten to do a run-through and registration day crept up even though I had reminders buzzing everywhere. I'm just lucky my laptop remembered my Walden West password.

See you at camp!

 

 

 

 

Camp Galileo: These Stars say it's all good!

It's February, the month I usually start thinking about summer camps.

This will be our second year of Camp Galileo (aka Camp G). Check out my son's video in that post and you'll see how engaged he was (at age 6) during his week of sleuthing about impressionist paintings as a "detective in Paris" this past summer.

My boys almost never vividly describe their day to me at pickup. They say that everything was "good." School was good. Camp was good. The birthday party was good. Basically, it means they're blowing me off. It means, I did it and it was GOOD and now I'm busy playing so leave me alone! I have to wait a few hours or days for the details to come pouring forth. Some details never come.

I mention this because last week, I recently had the chance to sit down with the team at Galileo Learning and explore beyond my kids' one word descriptor. Turns out the word "good" is just a springboard for the Galileo Innovation Approach which means, always: Be Visionary, Be Courageous, Be Collaborative, Be Determined and Be Reflective.

This mindset, repeated in the curriculem for every theme, at every camp, year after year is important. Children will learn, over time and with repetition, to use this mindset when faced with a challenge; and they'll learn how to gather knowledge in the process of creating and bringing a new idea to fruition.

School gives my kids the basics. Camp Galileo teaches kids what to do with those basics in a variety of disciplines such as art and science. I wish that Camp Galileo were an after-school option for kids, so that they could take what they've learned in school and apply it in a way that's fun and reflective of real life matters.

My kids are Camp Galileo campers, that is, they are between Pre-K and rising 5th graders. When they become rising 5th to 8th graders, they will be eligible for Galileo Summer Quest (one week format) where I'm sure they'll beg me to sign them up for Video Game Design camp. Rising 4th to 8th graders can apply hands-on learning in science and technology at The Tech Summer Camps. And new this year, is the Chabot Space and Science Camp for rising 4th to 8th graders. All of this falls under the guidance of Galileo Learning.

There are four Camp Galileo weekly themes lined up for 2012. Nebulas (pre-K and kindergartners), Stars (rising 1st/2nd graders, like my kids were last year) and Supernovas, rising 3rd - 5th graders) can look forward to themes that can be divided into art, science and outdoors.

Briefly, some highlights are:

Galileo Olympics: Greek Art and The Science of the Games

Nebulas will construct a leaf-adorned victory head wreath and make a foam stamps to embellish their ancient Greek tunic.

Stars get to mold their own gold and bronze medals and fling about new terms like "fluid design."

Supernovas will be crafting with paper-maché and using impulse force. My kids have never done paper-maché so I'm sure this will be a fun, messy project. Then they'll learn about owls and as any Harry Potter fan will tell you, owls are not only wise, but they're magical as well. Then, if that were not enough, my boys will have the chance to test out a bow and arrow during an archery event. 

I'm thinking we might go with this theme, as it might awaken an interest in this summer's 2012 Olympics in London.

Celebrate the Golden Gate: SF Art and Bridge Engineering

San Francisco is our backyard stomping grounds and I know it like the back of my hands. Sometimes, we go about as natives and other times, we just play tourist. I love how this theme is relatable to the day trips we make to San Francisco.

Nebulas will learn the history of the Dutch Windmill (the one out by Ocean Beach) and then make their own out of clay.

Stars will craft a Lombard Street collage and learn to build a bridge.

Supernovas will make a 3D painted lady (Victorian house) and engineer a suspension bridge. I'm sure it will all be trickier to do than it looks!

Leonardos's Apprentice: Renaissance Art & Inventions

Evidence of Leonardo's influence is everywhere. My boys and I recently watched a Nova episode called Mystery of a Masterpiece. I have a massive coffee table book on Leonardo which my grandmother passed down to me. My boys have read many books in which Leonardo appears as a character (like Monday with a Mad Genius). I like that I'll be able to round out what my boys learn during a week studying Leonardo just by looking around me.

Nebulas will embellish a Renaissance sketch book and explore the concept of sink or float, to name a few of the activities they'll be doing.

Stars will pratice shading and painting to make clouds. I'm an Art Vistas docent at my kids' school so I enjoy anything that ties into the work we're doing there, and yes, we have learned to make clouds!

Supernovas will paint their own frecoes.

Galileo Rocks! The Art and Science of Music

This theme links art masters like Picasso and Matisse to instruments depicted in their works.

Nebulas will make sea masks and design drums of different diameters.

Stars will use a kalimba to explore prong placement and length in relation to pitch. Then they'll get their groove on and practice rhythm and movement.

Supernovas will create a mixed media collage (think Kandinsky) and make a guitar out of nylon, cardboard and wood!

My kids will be doing two weeks at Camp G (some people do 4 weeks or more!). We've yet to nail down the themes, but one thing is certain, I will NOT be packing lunch! New this year to Camp G, lunch and snacks will be provided by ChoiceLunch. It's an additional fee, but after 9 months of packing lunches this school year, I am done. And it's not like I'm giving my kids the license to gobble down pesticide laden junk food, either, no - it's ChoiceLunch, which provides healthy, hormone and antibiotic free meats and dairy. We're going to give the lunch option a go.

The other thing I like about Camp G is the counselors. All the lead instructors are college graduates. With less than 10 percent of applicants accepted, landing the role of a Camp G leader is prestigious indeed!

A camp is a camp is a camp, right? Wrong!

So what I learned from my kids is that in its simplest interpretation, "good" equals fun. But what I learned from the hard working team at Galileo Learning is that good and fun equal the Galileo Innovation Approach. It means that slowly and without realizing it, my kids will pack along some helpful tools they'll need as they go out into the world. They'll learn ways to be visionary, courageous, collaborative, determined and reflective.

According to my Stars, it's all good.

Did I mention the discount? Refer friends and you both get $40 off. In fact, you'll get a $40 reduction with each referral. That's a crazy discount.

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Disclaimer: Galileo Learning invited me to a discussion centered around the Galileo Innovation Approach. They are giving my kids one free week of camp each because they want to hear my feedback, both positive and negative. So stay tuned for our post-camp write up later in the summer!

Our Summer Wardrobe is the Camp Galileo T-Shirt

My twin boys have easy fashion requirements when it comes to clothing. They're into soft t-shirts with cool graphics and absolutely no hardware of any kind (we're looking at you buttondown shirt). It takes my boys all of two minutes to get dressed. T-shirts, shorts and presto, they're ready for the day.

This summer has been the summer of the Camp Galileo t-shirt. It's become my boys' summertime uniform. They wear their light blue Camp Galileo "Stars" shirts nearly every day. I think my boys wax nolstaglic when they're in their Camp Galileo shirts. We went to camp and a good time was had by all.

My boys took away some incredible memories from their two week experience at Camp Galileo. As the mother of the boys who wear their Camp Galileo shirts almost every day, Camp Galileo isn't far from my mind either. Those shirts are in every laundry basket I set out to fold. I can't fathom the number of times I've folded those shirts. I could probably pick them out of a pile of clothing with my eyes shut.

My boys have worn their Camp Galileo shirts to bed. They've worn them to other other camps. Our photos from this summer look like we packed in a hundred activities into one day because no matter what my boys doing, at least one of them is wearing a Camp Galileo t-shirt!

A few examples...

At the OMSI in Portland.

 

A the beach, making a fort.

On the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad.

At Santana Row, shopping with me (think I must've bribed him).

Chalk Boy wore his camp shirt to the aquarium:

His brother wore his while trying to earn time on his beloved Sony PSP.

Tomorrow will be yet another day of making memories in a Camp Galileo t-shirt. My boys will be heading to a spy camp at a local school district and guess what they'll be wearing? HEAVILY laundered Camp Galileo t-shirts, of course.

Another day, another Camp Galileo t-shirt to wash. I see no end in sight until my boys have outgrown them. Which leaves me to wonder why Camp Galileo only allows ONE t-shirt per camper per summer? Every camper gets one t-shirt only, even if they attend camp the entire summer. I say bump it up to one t-shirt per week of camp attended, or make the t-shirts available for sale on-site.

It's all good, of course. Camp Galileo = a summer of fun and learning. As long as my boys feel happy, I'm happy to wash those shirts, again and again. We loved Camp Galileo and will be back for more next summer. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask... pssst... Camp Galileo! Do you think you can allow me to stock up on t-shirts next year? Please?

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

Disclaimer: We participated in two weeks of Camp Galileo, each in a different location. One week we paid for on our own; the other is a complimentary week courtesy of Camp Galileo. I decided to write about our experiences at both camps and the opinions expressed herein are my own.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, Virginia, There is No Lightsaber

It would have been better if I'd told him there was no Santa Claus.

He teared up, sunk into a brief melancholy, his face full of disbelief. As I watched my son, I had a flashback to that devastating day when I'd found out there was no Santa Claus. I knew how he felt.

How does one explain to a child that the DK Star Wars Visual Dictionary references a work of fiction, that the lightsabers referenced within are the result of special effects? Sure, some of the ideas in Star Wars are based on hard science, but most of it stretches the truth as to what science can actually do. It's science fiction, after all.

Recently, we were in the audience at Foothill college's annual Physics Show. We had to flee midway through the show because my two little scientists were not getting along, so when we got home, I gave them a guilt trip made up a story about how, by leaving, we'd missed out on a demo of lightsaber physics. There really was no such demo, but I wanted my Star Wars obsessed boys to think they'd missed something great.

My boys think that somewhere out there, lightsabers are real. They do realize that to enter the world of Star Wars is to enter the world of make believe, but when kids yearn for something so much, they push aside all logic and believe what they want to believe. Lightsabers are real. Santa Claus is real. Elf on the Shelf is real, sort of. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker? Not real, but lightsabers are something that could be built. It certainly is a world of mixed up realities over at our house.

To my kids, lightsabers are the coolest thing ever. We started out with pool noodles and small inflatable party favor lightsabers. Then this past autumn, we finally acquiesced and bought our now 5-year-old boys, a bunch of heavy duty toy lightsabers. But I think, at the back of their minds, these toy lightsabers were just a way to a means, that somehow the future would bring the coveted real lightsaber, like the ones wielded in the Star Wars movies.

Activion & Bill Nye: Science Fun for the Our Family

I think it was the quicksand that did it.

We introduced our 4 "AND A HALF!!!" year-old boys to Bill Nye the Science Guy via You Tube exactly two hours before we were to meet him in person. My boys are intrigued by science so from the moment they first watched Bill Nye talk about quicksand, they were sucked in and they loved it.

So at the invitation of the eco-friendly folks at Activion, we joined fellow SV Moms bloggers and their families at San Jose's Tech Museum of Innovation (we like to call it the Orange museum!) to see our new friend Bill teach us some science. My boys dressed the part, donning their safety goggles and clutching plastic test tubes. Then they practiced working "Bill Nye the Science Guy" into everything they said, mostly because they liked the way his name rhymes.

When we entered, the room all set up with rows of chairs and I had but one thought: We are doomed. For some reason, I'd had it in my head that this was going to be more of a hands-on demo, with centers like in preschool. Would my rambunctious little boys be willing to sit through this?

But once Bill Nye began to speak, my boys snapped to attention, then rushed to the front of the room to join the other kids on the floor for an up close view of science in action. It worked. It was like Science 101 for preschoolers. I stayed on the side, auditing. We watched as Bill in his signature lab coat and bow tie launched into a demo of the Activeion, breaking down the science behind it in simple terms. I glanced back at my science oriented husband who'd stayed seated toward the back and I could tell he was enjoying this event. But Bill sealed the deal with the pint sized future scientists when he brought out the big drum (really, a big rubber garbage can) and banged out huge rings of smoke which hurled across the room like cannon balls. My little guys were thrilled!

Center of Attention at the Exploratorium

The young comedian stepped up to the podium and grabbed hold of the mic. The stage lights were shining brightly into his face, blocking out the audience, but he could feel them there. It was a full house. "Knock 'em dead, " I wanted to shout, but I knew that would be distracting to him. "What? What did you say, Mommy? Who's dead?" he'd ask, stepping off the stage.

"Say hello, say your name!" I suggested instead.

"Hello, HELLO! My name is Cheese Boy and I'm here on stage..." he announced, his voice echoing.

But the audience booed! Yes, they booed at a 3-year-old during his first moments on stage! What an unforgiving audience! Hmf!

But Cheese Boy kept smiling, though he looked up at me for reassurance.

"Say your joke, " I encouraged.

"Knock, knock...who's there?" he began, then changed his mind, "Why did the underwear cross the road?"

The audience burst into laughter, even before the punchline was said.

"They loved it!" I yelled from the sidelines.

Cheese Boy laughed nervously.

"Underwear!" he repeated, for emphasis.

"Boooooo! Booooooo!" the audience retorted.

"Oh, they didn't like that one this time, " I cautioned.

"Why not?" replied Cheese Boy, still smiling but looking a bit unsure.

"Why did the underwear cross the road?" asked Cheese Boy, boldly trying out the same joke.

The audience roared, again before the punchline was delivered.

"Because the carrot was waiting!" continued Cheese Boy as the audience clapped and whistled in approval.

Cheese Boy went on to try out a few more fragmented jokes that only a preschool boy might find amusing. His jokes were hit and miss. Sometimes the audience ate it up, sometimes they booed and hissed. What an emotional roller coaster for my little stand up comic, but that's exactly what the experience of the MIND exhibit ("Center of Attention") was supposed to be, a simulated experience in front of a "live" audience. 

"Come on, " I said, stepping out of the limelight within the photo sized booth, its tiny walls covered in black fabric, "Let's go find the shadow box!" And with that, we skipped off through the Exploratorium, in search of strobe lights.

Original Chalk and Cheese Chronicles blog post.