Witte Museum Week 3 - Ellen Foreman

Week 3: Adventures into Nature

 ~July 27, 2023~

Even though it’s supposed to be week 4, I’m actually still working for a few more days after today to make up for some days that I couldn’t come in! I’ve probably shared some pictures of cats before, as I see one almost every morning. They’re known around the museum as “Witte kitties” and there’s a Siamese one that likes hanging out around the acequia garden where the kids play during sign-in/sign-out. There are also lots of other animals around the San Antonio River, including herons, cormorants, ducks, and even a turtle that likes to bask on a rock that protrudes from the center of the river (it’s really hard to get a good picture of, though).

This morning, I got to attend a demo at the dinosaur gallery that featured a very cute baby triceratops animatronic – I think this is one of the more popular demos because parents love to take pictures of their kids with the dino. I also ran into a camper from the previous week who wanted to show her family all of the exhibits that she had spent time in before! When I got back to the camp room after lunch, I helped out with several engaging bird crafts, although some of these were more difficult than the ones we had done before. In particular, a lot of the kids needed help with coiling together strips of paper to create a 3D bird, which was fun because I eventually learned how to make better feathers. They did some more finger-painting, and I think they turned out really well, although some campers chose to go with animals that weren’t birds, including armadillos and otters. Lastly, I helped them decorate their own hummingbird suncatchers by mixing together as many pieces of colored fabric as possible.



Mr. Riley holding the triceratops baby :)





Some of the bird crafts


  ~July 28, 2023~

Today was the most chaotic day of camp so far this week – I think some of the campers forgot that it wasn’t Saturday just yet! In the morning, we worked on creating miniature drawings that they could use to put into buttons. There wasn’t any specific theme to go by, even though today was supposed to be mammal day, so some campers ended up drawing the planets, flowers, or even people. Unfortunately, a couple of campers accidentally left their buttons behind at sign-out today, so I guess they won’t be able to wear them after all. We did some more climbing at Mt. Witte, and this time, someone finally managed to reach all the way to the top and ring the bell! In the afternoon, I passed out some Zen coloring pages for the campers to work on. Although many campers just opted to color the fox, whale, bear, and owl sheets with only crayons, a couple of them attempted to pattern the figures using the suggestions provided on the pages, and they turned out really beautifully.  The Art of Nature camp has actually been my favorite camp so far, so I was sad to have to say farewell to all of the campers today once we wrapped up all of our activities.

In the evening, I helped clean up Memorial Auditorium with another intern to prepare for the upcoming week of camp. My box of supplies for story time also arrived at the museum today!

Throughout this week, I feel like I’ve learned so much about interacting and working with both my team members and my campers. Being part of the camp environment is not just about serving your community as a leader, but being part of a team, as it is our responsibility to focus on inspiring the campers to appreciate art and culture. Even though we’re having fun exploring different methods of creation, we’re also holding important conversations about why we should protect our natural world and our history.



Zen art and button-making


Me! :)


 ~August 1, 2023~

I had a late start to work today since I wasn’t able to get dropped off as early as usual, but I still managed to make it to a presentation in the Live Lab for the campers with a real tarantula – he didn’t really seem perturbed at all by the presence of so many children, though. At lunchtime, the kids finished watching Ice Age and moved on to Night at the Museum (obviously a classic - I’m pretty sure we watch this one almost every week), and then they continued working on some of their dinosaur drawings. I was impressed by how artistic some of the older campers were! For the next half-hour, they took turns mining for fossils with their new paleontology tool kits that they had just decorated with fabric markers.



Searching for fossils



A dinosaur drawing


Most importantly, today was my story time! My story time was hosted at the Witte Museum, in the Dawson Family Hall, which is one of the newest additions to the museum. Because the event was scheduled for free Tuesday, when the museum experiences the most traffic throughout the week, we were expecting a lot of families to stop by. Ms. Pamela and Ms. Lessli were immensely helpful in coordinating the event by recruiting some volunteers that could help direct visitors from the museum into the hall and by helping me figure out how to work with the sound systems. While most of the kids were a little too young to understand the prompts on the activity sheets on their own, they still had a lot of fun listening to the story and I enjoyed seeing some of the drawings they created!


Reading at story time





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