Fun with Fertilizer & Compost Camp Day
Welcome to our “Fun with Flower Power! – An Amazing DIY Plants Camp Week” series. For Day 5 of our camp week, we focused on what fertilizers, compost, and why they’re important! Read on for ideas on themed ideas on crafts, links to educational and interactive games, food snacks, and experiments!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
For our introduction into the concepts of fertilizers and compost, we watched a 10 minute video on the importance of composting and how it produces fertilizer. Then we read through a kid-friendly pdf from aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu on how to compost: COMPOSTING for KIDS (tamu.edu)
WHAT TO WATCH
For our video of the day, we picked a Wild Kratts episode all about earthworms!
- Wild Kratts: S1E05 Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
There are quite a few activities in a guide posted by Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District: Do the Rot Thing. We used Activity 2 & 3 for snacks and lunch. The activities challenge kids to think about their food and whether or not they come from compost and/or can be turned into compost.
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. For our book of the day, we picked a 4 Nonfiction book on composting. If you’ve got an older child, you can also have them fill out a book report or write out some interesting facts they’ve learned.
- Compost Stew by Mary McKenna Siddals
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: FERTILIZER, COMPOST, SOIL
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices.
- If you were a wild critter or flying insect and saw the humans making a compost hole, what would you think it was?
CRAFTS
For our craft of the day, we made pom pom and pipe cleaner worms:
- Pom Pom Wiggly Worms: We used a technique similar to our Wiggly Caterpillar Craft. We unfortunately did not have dark pink or brown and so improvised with blacks, whites, and bright pinks to make the worms.
- Pipe Cleaner Worms: We used a technique similar to our Wiggly Pipe Cleaner Caterpillar Craft and used brown pipe cleaners to create the worms.
STEM ACTIVITY
Our science activity was actually paired with our outdoor walk for the day. We followed Activity 6 in Do the Rot Thing, though not to the letter as we didn’t have a compost bin or pile nearby. We simply walked around the park trying to find some of the critters. We counted each and made a table at home, complete with a bar chart 🙂
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home play / summer camp guide! If you enjoyed this article, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other at home play / summer guides: DIY Summer Camps.
Happy Learning!
