Fun Field Trips

One of the best things about Huronia Museum’s Summer Jam Day Camp, and there are many, is that every week the kids go on a field trip.  Sometimes it means a bus ride, other times it is just a walk, but the kids are always excited to go.

A couple of years ago our camp even got funding to buy special t-shirts.  They don’t wear them all the time, usually just for field trips, though on really busy days they have been known to wear them in the park.  These t-shirts were one of the best investments we ever made.  They are bring yellow with a cute camping picture on the front and the phrase “Life is great at Huronia Museum day camp”  and it is!  They are also a one size fits all type, so some kids are just wearing a t-shirt others have a yellow dress.  It is kind of like little kids playing hockey and all the jerseys are so long you can’t see their pants.

They are so much easier to spot this way.  It is especially nice when there are a lot of them.  Notice the boy in the distance of this photo.  He is a little way away from the main group, but you don’t have any trouble keeping an eye on him.  It is a lifesaver on days when they are playing on all the different pieces of equipment.

For trips they are great because they identify our kids as a group and where they are from.  I have had people mention seeing our kids walking around town on their way too and from various field trips.  It is also kind of a fun way of advertising the camp.  For trips where the kids might get dirty they, like the Wye Marsh, they are great.  They always end up wet and muddy, so when they get back to the museum, they can change back into their own shirts rather than being dirty for the rest of the day.

So the kids look cute, they advertise our camp, and moms and dads don’t have to wash out the dirt that accumulates in the course of a really good field trip.  It is a winning situation for everyone.

Things are HUMMing Right Along!

In June of this year Huronia Museum launched a new fundraising campaign called HUMM.  Huronia’s Ultimate Museum Makeover.  This idea came from one of our board members as a way of reaching out to the community to fundraise, without asking a great deal of any one individual.  In essence it is a penny drive.  There are buckets all over Huronia where people can drop their pennies and help support the museum.  All the funds raised will be put towards implementing changes to our current exhibit space, to update, modernize and reorganize the displays.

The response so far has been great.  We have had a number of the buckets come back full and get sent out again and a number of people coming in with their penny jars to make a donation.  I am very glad that I will not have to count all the pennies!  The other day we even had one of our campers come in with a jar of pennies.  Mark Cruden has been coming to our day camp for a number of years.  His family have also been kind supporters of the camp and other museum events.  It is such a great feeling when one of our campers does something like this.  To see that kind of generosity in children is wonderful and to know that they have such an attachment to the museum that they want to be involved is gratifying.  We love all our campers and it is nice to know that they feel the same.

Summer Jam Again

Well, we are wrapping up our sixth week of day camp already.  It seems absolutely amazing how quickly the summer is flying by.  There have been a lot of great activities in the last six weeks and plenty more to come in the next four.

I don’t get to spend a lot of time with the kids myself, they are largely with Dustin and Nicole, but we do spend an hour a day together and so I have gotten to know a lot of the regulars and they are a pretty fun group.  I never cease to be amazed by the number of ways kids can find to amuse themselves.  It also seems to happen in trends.  They will completely engrossed in an activity for a week or so and then move on to something new.  There has been a Memory Match fad, a checkers fad, a cats craddle fad and an Uno fad.  I find this also gives me a chance to brush up on playing some of the games I loved as a kid.  In fact I am genuinely disappointed now that no one wants to play connect four anymore. Other fads passed away, like this one and I am not in the least sorry.  I have never been a fan of Twister.

The big surprise came one day when one of the kids asked me to show them how to play chess.  I admit I am a little rusty, I stopped playing when I was 14 so it had been a while, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to remember and I was playing against a complete novice so I agreed.  Now it has spread like wildfire and there is a race everyday after lunch to get to the board.  Some of the rules get glossed over, some new ones get made up and the focus seems to be more on getting as many pieces as possible rather than getting to checkmate, but the kids love it.  It even tends to attract a crowd of watchers.  I used to offer advice when I could but stopped when I realised that it usually turned out badly.  I have never been good a strategy, which is why I stopped playing in the first place.  I think the kids are better on their own.   Occasionally they ask me to play and I end up losing because I start off going easy on them and then get careless and dig myself a huge hole.  At least, that is what I tell myself.

Answering the call

Huronia Museum recently purchased a large amount of organic elm bark to be used in the eventual rebuilding of the longhouse.   When it was delivered there was a great deal more than orginally expected, far more than our single maintenance person could handle alone so we put an article in the newspaper asking for volunteers to help unload, clean and store it all.  The response has been overwhelming.

We have had volunteers of all kinds coming in to help out and as a result the project is just about finished.  It has been fantastic to see.  We even had an offer of help from our youngest ever volunteers.  Karley, Keegan and Brandon are 11, 9 and 13 respectively.  While we weren’t able to put them to work on the bark we did get there help with a few other things around the museum.  They were nice enough to give us 2 hours of their time on a Friday morning and plan to return.

It is so nice to see kids in the community giving up their free time to help out and become involved.  Thank you to all the volunteers who have helped with this project as well as those who have done things for us in the past.  Without the dedication of community volunteers organizations like Huronia Museum would have a much harder time accomplishing all that they do.

More Peas

Obviously I am not the world’s best blogger.  I get busy and forget and a lot of the things I do in the course of the day just aren’t that thrilling.  Lately there has been a lot of paperwork.  But, since there is no rule that says I have to be directly involved in everything I blog about I find that I do have plenty of material.  For now I will introduce the last of the new peas in our pod so that everyone is present and accounted for.

First is Nicole Mailloux joined us in the last week of June.  She goes to  at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and has a double major in english and history.

Hillary Smith is an MSS student returning for her second year at Huronia Museum.  Tara Bracanovic is a Penetanguishene Secondary School student who is with us for the first time this summer.

All of our peas are very busy this summer greeting visitors, looking after our day campers, giving tours and answering questions.  They are all very nice, enthusiastic people who are anxious to help, so please come and visit us and give them a chance to share their newly acquired knowledge.  They all wear blue t-shirts so they are easy to spot.

The Unofficial Peas

Every summer Huronia Museum brings on a new batch of summer students to help us out through the busy tourist season.  In fact, our small staff usually doubles in size from June through August.

These students become the Unofficial Peas.  The Pod is a homebase of sorts.  A hub for all summer student activities.  Nahanni, our administrator and the other official Pea, and I interview, introduce and train these “baby peas” if you will.  Since these baby peas are such an important part of our summer operations I felt it was only right to dedicate a little blog space to them.  These guys work very hard throughout the summer delivering tours, running the day camp, keeping things tidy and handling the retail operations on the weekends.  Some of the jobs they do are not particularly exciting, but they do them and they do them well so I thought they deserved a little recognition. 

My last two posts were to introduce them, but throughout the summer I will do updates on some of the interesting project they are working on.

Heritage Interpretive Staff 2009

Heritage Interpretive Staff 2009

Originally uploaded by huroniamuseum

Meet the Heritage Interpretive Staff for Huronia Museum’s 2009 summer season. All three are new to us this year but are already showing great enthusiasm and initiative.
Megan Murray is a DSW student who has been involved with us in the past as a assistant to one of our regular campers. This year she will divide her time between Heritage Interpretation and assisting Dustin and Nicole with the Summer Jam Camp.
James Vandal is a forensic science student at Trent University. He has an interest in history as is very eager to learn.
Katelyn Lesperance attends the University of Ottawa. She has been with us for several weeks and has met every challenge that we have thrown at her so far. Both she and James are fluently bi-lingual in French and English which mean that we are able to offer all of our services in both official languages. I am sure that all of our French speaking visitors will appreciate their help this summer.
So welcome to them.Looking forward to a great summer.

Our Summer Jam Staff Leaders for 2009

Summer Jam Staff 2009

Originally uploaded by huroniamuseum

We would like to welcome back Nicole Newburn as one of our Summer Jam staff leaders this year. Nicole just finished teachers’ college and, fortunately for Huronia Museum, will be with us for one more summer before she begins her career as a full time teacher in the fall of 2009.
Dustin Kenney is new at Huronia Museum and our second Summer Jam staff leader this season. Dustin is taking physical education and history at Brock University in St. Catharine’s and plans on attending teachers’ college in the fall of 2010. Dustin worked with a summer camp for children with special needs last summer and has some really exciting ideas for kids hanging out at the museum with us this summer.
Click here for further information on our summer programs for kids.

Summer Jam Day Camp

I have allowed some guest (more information on them later) to add some information to my Blog.  It just seemed better to get camp info directly from the people planning and running the camp.  So here they are…

Huronia Museum Summer Jam Day Camp

July & August 2009

 Join us for a summer filled with fun! We look forward to providing both an educational and fun experience for your child. Each week we will go swimming, visit the Midland Library, and take part in fun games and crafts. 

This summer camp is going to be more exciting then with ten themed weeks.  We will start off with wild adventure as we investigate everything from deep-sea creatures to Archaeological discoveries.  We will visit the past present and future in our time travel week.  We will investigate Art, Nature, Mad Science and even Space.  This includes various trips and special guests such as a trip to Wye Marsh and a visit from a local astronomy expert.  We will spend a week with Superheroes as we visit the Midland Police Station and the Midland Fire Hall.  Sports week will be filled with active and educational sports and games; during Iron Chef week we will be enjoying camper made creations.  We then take an imaginary trip around the world, including Africa where we will go on Safari at the Elmvale Jungle Zoo.

We look forward to start of summer and the start of camp. Our Summer Jam Camp begins June 29 and runs straight through until September 4. We are continuing to improve our camp plans and daily activities throughout the rest of the spring. We welcome any questions or concerns.

Dustin and Nicole

To take a closer look at our camp plans please check out the Camp Calendar.  This will tell you what the theme for each week is and the primary activity of each day.

Here is the registration form for our camp.  Please print and complete this and return it to Huronia Musem to register your child Registration Form

What is the Pod?

I thought it might be a good idea to explain to people exactly what the Pod is.

The Pod is the office at Huronia Museum in which I work.  It is a small square room roughly100 square feet.  It contains 4 medium sized desks, put together so it is more like 2 large L-shaped desk.  There is a bank of cupboards hung on one wall above a sink and counter with more cupboards below.  There are wall mounted shelves that hang in an L above each desk as well as two large Ikea cubby hole bookcases stacked one on top of the other for additional storage.  It gets topped off by the last bits of free space being taken up with one large and one small filing cabinet.  Needless to say it is a very full room and I am not alone in the Pod.  There are in fact two peas in this Pod.  At one time there were three but for that you have to exchange the bookcases for another desk.  Oh, and there are no windows in the Pod.

The peas in this particular Pod are the museum’s Administrator and Education Coordinator (that’s me).  Like all other positions in this small regional museum these positions wear many hats, sometimes changing them two or three times a day.  Like every other workspace in the museum, a great deal gets done in limited space.  We at Huronia Museum are experts at using space to its utmost.  From here programs are created and planned for, grant proposals are written, a newsletter is created, events are planned, and it is hub for all the general administrivia that goes along with operating a not-for-profit organization.  We are busy peas.

As a result the Pod is an industrious place.  Industry often produces waste. 

This is Nahanni’s desk.  Note:  two keyboards, two coffee cups and the pink princess pen.

This is my desk.  It doesn’t always look like this.  Sometimes it is worse.  Note:  the numerous post-its on the monitor and the small George Clooney postcard in the corner.

This is what is going on behind my desk.  Note: Complete Chaos!

So that is the Pod.  For all the mess and disorganization it is a happy and productive place.  And like the sign on the door says, This is where the magic happens!