Food and Farm Summer Camps

Below is an example of a summer camp offered through AYERS. Programs depend on collaborators' and funders' needs and guidelines.

Week 1

Week 2

Fruits and vegetables by color identification team activity
Cheese tasting (cow, goat, sheep, buffalo) – continuation of dairy theme from farm visit earlier in week- focusing on similarities, differences in these dairy foods
Handout given to take home of color chart and lists of fruit and vegetables by color. They’re asked to keep track of colors of fruits and vegetables they eat on chart over the next week and bring charts and discuss how they’ve done following Thurs.
Creative/interactive/dramatic food themed activity and storytelling

Week 3

Review visit to meat farm and color charts focusing on increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables
Salad making and tasting-harvest, wash and spin salad leaves, gather and polish tomatoes
Farm chores-fire wood, chicken barn
Benefits of colors, introduction to anti-oxidants- apple experiment (browning with and without lemon)- journaling

Week 4

Review beach trip
Review healthy bingo with Dr Green and what they learned
Flavored water making and tasting: strawberry basil, raspberry, orange, cucumber mint
Storytelling- Little crab and the Magic Eyes and Big Al, Fisherman and His Wife
Foods from the sea and beach-seaweed tasting

Week 5

Food as medicine and introduction of foods for health specific conditions – foods that help, foods that hinder colds
Story telling involving the senses
Foods and the senses
Pesto making and tasting –basil, olive oil, garlic

Week 6

Seaweeds and seafood
Story telling about clams
Clam corn chowder making and tasting-canned clams, potato, onion, corn, milk, seasonings
Continuation healing with foods-digestion: food methods to aid and ginger tea

Week 7

Preparation for following week’s final evening – discussion of skit around how foods make them feel, drawing a picture of a fruit or vegetable for the screen
Pissenlit making (dandelion salad) history of the salad - Forage for dandelion leaves, pick salad leaves, wash and spin leaves, peel hard boiled eggs, fry and crumble bacon, make dressing.
Review of foods and health conditions as well as benefits of colors

Week 8

Event with families
Review of what was done, children answered questions about food and health benefits and detriments, association with colors, recipes they’d made.

Objectives – by the end of the 8 week program children will have:

observed and identified a variety of colourful fruits and vegetables linked to the colours of the rainbow, seen where and how they grow and heard how they can be connected to and have health benefits in the body
seen examples of and discussed foods in season
been introduced to the principles of blood sugar balance and its relation to how foods can make them feel
discussed the history of food, food production, processing
different food manufacturing approaches since the war
identified food groups
seen and participated in food preparation involving hygiene, safety and cooking principles
tasted various fruits, vegetables and recipes
foraged for edible foods on the farm and beach, learned safety principles and how they are used in cooking and recipes

​Food and Farm Summer Camps