A Walk on the Beach

Our community has a defunct golf course with ponds, river and paved trails. We asked permission from the caretaker and spent most of the afternoon there. It was the perfect place for the little ones to ride their trikes. They had a big adventure driving back and forth over the bridges.

 

 

They also napped, ...

 

chilled, ...

 

hiked, ...

 

fished, ...

 

 

caught frogs and...

 

played...

 

 

(and cried) in the water and...

 

the mud!!!

 

 

 

The Beach Walk

This is a little virtual reality adventure I came up with for the second Camp GrammaLuvlee. It was a hit then but after all these years I felt like it could be recycled and improved upon!

 This is a walk on the beach !

Supplies needed:

Shower curtain from Dollar Tree - bath tub vinyl mat (with suction cups)

Squishy, water noodle toys

Sand - Sea Shells - marbles - ping pong balls

baby pool

fan - 2 squirt bottles, bucket of water

warm baby cereal( i mixed oatmeal baby cereal with water to a runny consistency)

 sardines, - stinky vinyl bait

2 CD players - 2 CD of sound effects

blindfolds - boat

 

The campers were blindfolded and told they were at the beach. I had background music of sea sounds, waves and seagulls that played throughout. I had another CD that had special sound effects.

 

They were guided on the walk.

 

They walked through sand with shells, then they made a loop and came through again.

 

This time we added ping pong balls because they had entered the turtle nesting ground.

 

Next they touched sea urchins.

 

Sea urchins

 

We had them reach down and pet the dolphins (the wet side of a baby pool). They heard a pod of dolphins (sound effects) and were given sardines to throw to them. Those naughty dolphins did a trick all right. They jumped high into the air and splashed (Splash Sound effect) our little campers. (Bucket of water) They then found an octopus and a pearl bed before seeing the captain of a boat waving them over. They went to the dock and boarded his boat. 

 

His boat was gently rocking in the water. They could hear the ocean sounds

and feel the mist of the ocean on their skin (Spray bottles).

 

Just as they were relaxing along came a flock of seagulls (Seagull sounds) and pooped all over the boat (warm baby cereal).

 

And to top that, along came a flock of pelicans and regurgitated a bellyful of fish (bait).

 

A storm came up, the waves were crashing (buckets of water), the sea weed was being churned up (wet paper towels), The boat was wildly rocking and the wind was howling (wind sounds and a fan on high speed). Then Gramma got sick! (retching sounds and more baby cereal)

 

Thankfully, we reached port before capsizing and all was well!

 

Beach Banquet

 

 Once they reached port (and their tummies calmed down) they enjoyed a beach banquet.

 

The jello aquarium was made with blue jello, chocolate rocks and plastic tropical fish and plants.

They also enjoyed ceviche and chips, fish sticks...

 

Shrimp pasta salad, shrimp cocktail, mini muffins and seashell cupcakes

Don't Go In The Water

Da-Dahn   Da-Dahn!

 

The older campers & friends were invited to an evening of ocean frolicing. Some of the smaller campers also convinced their mamas that it would be a good idea if they went also. That's fine, but they aren't climbing in my bed when they wake up screaming their cute little heads off in the middle of the night! The grand idea in my head was to put the little sweethearts in inner tubes and rafts in the middle of a dark pond and to then watch Jaws. What a perfect ending to our nice little beach day! Mother Nature and the Gods of Technology didn't picture the same glorious vision. After many "Technical Difficulties" and a drop in the temperature and a breeze, the campers thought it was too cold to watch in the water so they watched beside the pond rather than in it. It was still a success, if the number of nightmares was any indication!

 

 

 

Shark sign for the pond

 

 

 Gramma Luvlee