August 1-2, 2013

Humbug Mountain State Park, OR

Thursday-It rained last night-the first time since arriving at Humbug.  We didn’t expect much of a crowd for our program because it was chilly and overcast.  The benches at the JR Ranger site were wet so we put down large plastic garbage bags. 

We never know how many people will show up but we have to proceed on the assumption that we will have at least one attendee.  I set up the stations for our Bird Beak Buffett program.  Two boys showed up a couple of minutes before the start time of 10AM and then the others started drizzling in.  We ended up with 26. 

Friday-Thursday afternoon I started looking on the internet for ideas for our Busy Beaver program.  We had already done the program a couple of times but I wasn’t satisfied with it mainly because we finish off by playing Beaver Bingo.  The game is fine for the older kids but the younger ones who can’t read yet need help.  If we only had a handful of kids showing up for the program it wouldn’t be an issue to assist the younger kids.  BUT the Beaver program is our most popular and had been our biggest attended program to date.

While I was searching for “Beaver” ideas I came across a great video showing beavers building a dam.  SCORE.  The video was part of the BBC Earth series.  It is ten minutes long=just about the right amount of time to hold kids attention. 

We had to overcome a few obstacles if we wanted to use the video.  The first one was downloading it.  Our internet connection is very s-l-o-w.    Once that was accomplished our next obstacle was finding a power source for the projector.  We looked inside the wood shed located next to the JR Ranger site and sure enough there is an outlet on the light. 

I started out looking for a craft or game I could do with the kids instead of playing bingo and ended up finding the video so after downloading the video it was back to the research. 

All of sudden I remembered doing a project one year for Christmas gifts for my family.  I had bought them all books and made bookmarks personalized for each member.  AHHHH.

I cut strips of cardstock to the size of bookmarks.  To tie this craft into our program I used JR Ranger Beaver temporary tattoos that I transferred onto the strips. 

The first thing we did when we got to the site Friday morning was to figure out where to put the screen and projector.  Once that was accomplished I walked across the road to the camp host site to plug in the laminator. 

We had 35 in attendance including some adults.  I had only prepared 30 bookmark strips so that was cutting it close.  Monte started off the program by giving some beaver facts. 

Then I distributed the strips and markers for the kids to personalize.  When they were finished I collected them and while Monte showed the video I laminated, cut and punched holes for ribbons in the bookmarks.

The process took longer than I thought it would so Monte had to entertain the kids until I was finished. 

The program was very successful—the only downer being that it was a little difficult to see the video once the sun was directly over the site.  We will have to take that into account next time we do this program and place the screen at a different angle or location.

In the evening we took a walk around both loops of the campground handing out JR Ranger bumper stickers and inviting kids to the next days’ program. The campground is full so we might have a big turnout.