Baby Summer Camp

To go along with my quest for more baby programming, I had a Baby Summer Camp at the library this past week. The program was for 0-36 month-olds and their parents, although most of the kids for this particular programs were between 12 and 30 months. Here's what we were up to:

Obstacle Course- depending on ages, kids hopped over the pool noodles...

crawled through the tunnel (or through a hula hoop)...

and rode a pony (or ran) to the finish line! Most kids were young enough that they only did one step of the obstacle course at a time.

Arts & Crafts- paint in a bag, one of my personal favorites.

Music- we just had a nice donation of new instruments, which everybody loved banging on, honking, and strumming.

Popsicle Stick Picture Frames- we took pictures on our photo booth computer and decorated classic popsicle stick picture frame. I did find that kids were less interested in this part (which I somewhat expected) so it was nice having the music station in the same room.

And swimming! Only one little girl went all the way in, but all the kids liked splashing in the kiddie pool.

Little Scientists: Music & Sounds

This was the latest in my Little Scientists series (a STEAM-based program for 2-5 year-olds). Our Summer Reading Club theme this year is Reading Rocks, so I thought a very noisy Little Scientists would be perfect! Here's what we were up to:

"Song Writing" stations- kids used symbols like squares and hearts to "write" a song. Each shape stood for an action like clapping or stomping and then they would perform their song for the adults. This was great for the 4 & 5 year-olds.

Our art station- paper plate tambourines.

 

The highly- popular free music/instrument/dance station, courtesy of our bluetooth speaker and our assorted library instruments.

Xylophone station- kids used colored strips to match the missing keys in a picture of a xylophone (printable can be found here). Then they could play a real xylophone!

Sound vibrations- we used drumsticks on a set of real bongos, a balloon stretched over a cup, and a balloon stretched over a bowl to see how high we could make beans and rice jump! 

My personal favorite (which kids also liked and caregivers loved) was the cup-and-string telephone. Nobody could believe it actually worked, but kids loved whispering messages to their adults and hearing back from them.