Camp Rockosaurus Rocks!

This week, Gabe's going to Camp Rockosaurus at the Science Center. He's learning about rocks, fossils, dirt, plate tectonics, volcanoes, and dinos.


Each day, I get a detailed email outlining what Gabe learned at camp. This is very helpful because Gabe is at that age where he likes to fabricate stories and sometimes just gets mixed up on what he's learned. It also gives me some things to discuss with him.


Monday's email:

"Some Monday’s you wake up with a bad case of bed head and three slams of the snooze button. Others commence with laser shows and prehistoric creatures. This Monday was the later...

After a spectacular Pacific Science Center laser show, we embarked into an exploration of that very thing you cringe over when your child traipses into the house with a thick coat of it on their feet-- DIRT. And of course, all the things that come with it...from the smallest worms to the biggest dinosaurs and fossils and every pebble in between.

We dug into our topic by looking specifically at soil and what lives underground, peering into the life of a worm and taking a closer look at what happens underground by sprouting some seeds.

Tomorrow the exploration continues as we crack into the inner world of rocks and geodes. We will study how rocks are formed, three different kinds of rocks, and what rocks are made of. To accomplish this feat, we invite your camper to bring in their own rock to share--perhaps a shimmering tumbled stone from a gem show, a crystalized geode from the road side, or a pebble uncovered tonight from the back yard. Tomorrow, we will each unveil our rock and share it with the group."

Gabe brought in a smooth black stone from the beach.


Excerpt from Tuesday's email:

"From granite to sandstone, we tumbled through today’s material like the geologists we were born to be. We began by exploring every last rock and pebble brought in by each camper, discussing the visible characteristics of each. However, every scientist knows observation is about much more than what we see, so we practiced using our other senses as well. Thinking about weight, texture, even smell, we learned how we can gather different types of information using different senses, and that it is important to to take any observation for “granite”.

To learn first-hand how some of the most spectacular rocks are formed, we embarked on growing our own using a simple “salt crystal” recipe. We will be examining our crystals each day this week, tracking their progress, as we watch beautiful salt crystals emerge and intricate designs grow.

A visit to the land of walking sticks and hissing cockroaches was the cherry on our day, where your camper explored the intricacies of the life of an insect in Pacific Science Center’s Insect Village."

Wednesday was crazy hair day. This isn't too much of a stretch for Gabe. I simply put some gel in his hair and made it stand up all over.

Wednesday:

"We’ll kick this letter off with a joke--Why did the carnivorous dinosaur eat raw meat? Because they didn’t know how to barbecue!

While your camper may not know the answer to this silly question, they can tell you that a carnivorous dinosaur might in fact enjoy a big steak during a summer afternoon barbeque! Today we took one great big step back into the cretaceous period, turning our sights towards the great reptiles that once roamed the earth--Dinosaurs! We began by donning the proper attire, making our very own dinosaur hats. Once equipped, we made our way through the day, learning about the role camouflage played for dinosaurs and still plays for many modern creatures.

But the fun didn’t go extinct there. After a quick check in on our crystals, we learned about the tools a paleontologist might use.  We practiced our skills with our very own geodes.  During this activity, your camper made key observations about the size of their geode, the color, what it felt like, and even what it smelled like!  They made predictions about what they might find inside as well.  To check the accuracy of these predictions, wrap your geode in newspaper, and (with an adult) break it open with a hammer."

I'm proud to say Gabe knows his animal diets. We were working on this at the zoo the other day.


Tomorrow, find out what's inside Gabe's geode...