2014 Summer Camps: Wasatch Community Gardens

City Sprouts: Wasatch Community Gardens' 2014 Summer Camps

Wasatch Community Gardens’ award-winning youth program is proud to announce registration has opened for our summer camp program, City Sprouts! City Sprouts summer camps are fun-filled, weeklong adventures that will get kids eating fresh, local food, interacting with the natural world, and encountering the importance of open spaces and community work. This year’s partner agencies include: Bad Dog Art Studios, Tracy Aviary, Red Butte Gardens, and The Leonardo Museum! A limited number of need-based scholarships are available for most camps. Join us at the beautiful Grateful Tomato Garden for the most exciting summer program in town!

View complete information and register on the
Wasatch Community Gardens website.

Little Sprouts Preschool: Berries, Fairies, & Gnomes!
June 2-6
10am-noon        
Ages 3-4 (Entering Preschool)

What could be better than five days of exploring a new setting, digging in the dirt, planting flowers, and meeting new friends? This preschool summer camp is for both experienced and novice participants, alike! Storytelling, garden-themed art projects, and healthy snacks will be a great way to prepare your little sprout for his or her upcoming preschool adventures.

Little Sprouts Kindergarten: Beets, Books, & Barn Owls
June 9–13
9am-12pm
Ages 4-5 (Entering Kindergarten)

Join us for a week of fabulous fun, fresh food, and fantastic fiction in the garden. Storytelling, gardening, observing local flora and fauna, and trying new foods will be a great way to help prepare your little sprout for his or her upcoming adventures in kindergarten.

Treasures in the Garden (All-Day Partner Camp with Red Butte Garden)
June 16–20
9am-4pm
Ages 6-8 (Entering 1^st or 2^nd Grade)

This full-day camp is held in partnership with Red Butte Garden. At WCG our focus will be on growing healthy food that is good for our bodies and the environment.  At Red Butte Garden we’ll learn how to read a map, use it to find different locations, and maybe even search for hidden treasure! Be ready for a week of adventure and fun!

Grow Your Own Adventure (All-Day Partner Camp with Red Butte Garden)
June 16–20
9am-4pm
Ages 8-10 (Entering 3^rd or 4^th Grade)

This full-day camp is held in partnership with Red Butte Garden. At WCG our focus will be on growing and eating fresh, organic food, as well as keeping our bodies and the environment healthy. At Red Butte Garden we’ll learn the tools of navigation, hunt for secret treasures, and explore the Garden from the Quarry House to the Oak Tunnel. Be ready for an all-day adventure!

City Sprouts 1^st & 2^nd Grade: Super Sleuths & Garden Gumshoes
June 23-27
9am-noon
Ages 6-8 (Entering 1^st or 2^nd Grade)

Each day of camp begins with a secret message, a new mission, and a garden brimming with exciting clues! We’ll use our garden know-how, observation and inspection tools, and the scientific method to gather the evidence and solve the mystery de jour. Plenty of side-adventures, stories, games, and garden-fresh treats round out this fun-packed week.

Little Sprouts Kindergarten: Busy Bees & Bountiful Butterflies
July 7-11
9am-noon
Ages 4-5 (Entering Kindergarten)

A Utah garden in July is a wonderful space for growing food and beautiful flowers, as well as an important habitat for birds, butterflies, and bees. Join us for a week of exploring, eating fresh food, and planting a bee and butterfly garden! We'll watch butterflies grow from larva and release them into their new habitat. Daily garden exploration, stories, games, and garden-fresh treats (did somebody say local honey!?!) round out this fun-packed week.

City Sprouts 1^st & 2^nd Grade: Marigolds & Monarchs
July 14–18
9am-noon
Ages 6-8 (Entering 1^st or 2^nd Grade)

The garden is a wonderful space for learning how to grow food and beautiful flowers, as well as an important habitat for birds and insects. Join us for a week of exploring, digging, eating fresh food, and planting a butterfly garden! We'll watch butterflies grow from larva and release them into their new habitat. Daily garden exploration, stories, games, and garden-fresh treats round out this fun-packed week.

The Plant that Ate Dirty Socks! (All-Day Partner Camp with Bad Dog Arts)
July 28–Aug 1
9am-4pm
Ages 8-10 (Entering 3^rd or 4^th Grade)

Sunlight, water, and good soil are the building blocks for healthy plants, but what about dirty socks?! Inspired by the classic children's novel by Nancy McArthur, participants will explore what both real and imaginary plants like to eat with this weeklong summer camp. Through fun activities, games, nature walks, and more, your child will learn about the elements of growing happy edible plants. In the afternoons at Bad Dog Arts, your child will creatively utilize art and garden materials to create art projects and work together on collaborative creations designed to unleash the inner artist in everyone.

Healthy Habitats, Healthy Homes (All-Day Partner Camp with Tracy Aviary)
August 4–8
9am-4pm
Ages 6-8 (Entering 1^st or 2^nd Grade)

A healthy place to call home is a need all creatures share. And while some birds can have several homes that are long distances apart, plants, on the other hand, put down roots and spend their entire lives in one spot. Join Tracy Aviary and Wasatch Community Gardens as we spend a fun-filled week chasing clues, meeting new friends, and taking a closer look at the places we call "home."

(All-Day Partner Camp with the Leonardo Museum)
August 11–15
9am-4pm
Ages 8-10 (Entering 3^rd or 4^th Grade)

(All-Day Partner Camp with the Leonardo Museum)
August 11–15
9am-4pm
Ages 10-12 (Entering 5^th or 6^th Grade)

Little Sprouts: Hooray for the Harvest!
August 18–22
10am-Noon        
Ages 4-5 (Preschool)

Summer is almost over, which means that the garden is full of tasty things to try. And while older siblings are heading back to school this week, it’s the perfect time for preschoolers to enjoy an extra week of summer fun. Storytelling, gardening, and trying new foods will be a great way to prepare your little sprout for his or her upcoming preschool adventures.

Program started in 2011

Educational goals to create fun, summer camp opportinitites and create programs that focus on healthy eating, being outdoors, learning about local ecology.

Summer camps differ from other WCG programming because the emphasis is always on fun…. Learning happens through the engaging activities designed to happen through fun. The other nice thing is summer camps allow us to see a participant for 5 days straight so we can really start building on concepts, so an entire weeklong adventure and exploration. Kids get to go deeper into the topcs that we cover and form stronger relationships with each other and the plants and animals that they meet.

Our youth educators are UCC Americorps members who are passionate about improving their world and improving their world and connecting with the local community regarding food issues. Tend to be exceptionally bright, incredibly motivated full of energy and new ideas. We hire them for solid experience, passionate about food issues, public health, and disadvantaged populations. Really fun to be around, a sense of humor and wonderment, encourage other to have a good time. Teaching, communicating, working with kids. All background checked, trained on our core operating principles, base everything on respect, respectful evaluations of situations, communicating clearly, always have the best interest of child and group in mind.

Most kids show up to City Sprouts really excited to be there, and meet educators really excited to be there. First camp experience care given, kids having a blast.

Growth happens around realizations in the garden. New discoveries about the natural world.

Practice working together as part of a community. Taste and try new foods. All of the camps have healthy snack component.

Kids who like the outdoors, kids who enjoy letting loose, and having fun, explorers, great for love cooking, or who are not finicky eaters, or hesitant tryers--- we work very well with that and growing food helps fussy eaters.

“We’ve had kids come to camp who never eat peas leave camp with pockets stuffed with peas eager to share with their family.”- Billy “Bean” Stadwiser experiential learners, kids who are naturally curious about the natural world. Counselor to camper ration; 16:2, at least

Check-in, morning gathering and activity, name game getting comfortable, gardening activity or lesson, followed by a game. Mid morning healthy snack, followed by another activity or lesson. Art projects, snack time/snack making, plenty of fun and games, goofing around.

Partner camp or flip camp, where WCG partners with another local educational org. Provides an all day camp opportunity where kids have the opportunity to move to another location for the afternoon session which holds more activities and games around the theme. Leonardo will do cooking, Tracy will do stuff with birds. Bad Dog has studio art fun.

Learning happens through having fun.