Summer Camp
2019
Love Children. Love Nature.
Welcome to Great Beginnings day camp - Our campers will spend the summer exploring everything from the playground on our local campus to local mountain ranges to the edges of local lakes. Based on their ages, they will have a blast getting dirty in the soil, playing along local riverbanks, and learning about the unique ecosystems that make Montana a wonderful place to live and play.
Our younger campers stay on campus. Our campers 6 and older go off campus every day to explore!
Great Beginnings Summer Day Camp:
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Huckleberry Camp (ages 3-6)
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Field Camp (ages 6-11)
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Counselor-in-Training (ages 11-14)
What do you LOVE about the
local outdoors?
Fish, rivers, lakes, streams, insects, rocks, minerals, mammals and more.
We have 9-weeks of connected programming.
Come for one week, or stay for the summer!
Week 1: June 17 - 20th
Ecosystem Explorers:
The Great Beginnings Montessori School has been a local non-profit for 34 years and has offered Summer Nature Camps since 2007! Our Summer Camp provides quality, nature-based fun in an outdoor, hands-on setting. Campers spend most of their time outside, having a great time observing nature up-close using tools like binoculars, magnifying lenses and microscopes. Ecology concepts are introduced in a fun environment, with crafts, games and hands-on activities, and activities are specific to age groupings.
For the first week of summer, we'll ask how do animals and plants survive in water, dirt, or high up in a tree? Explore, observe, and play as you follow your own curiosity in this adventure from soil to sky.
Through nature hikes, games, and live animal encounters, you’ll discover the wide diversity of plants and animals living in our local ecosystems.
Field Camp: Walk in the woods, fields, and wetlands to see what we can learn from other creatures’ nests, dens, and hideouts. Get your hands dirty!
Local Connection: Gallatin Valley Farm to School
Green Theme: Compost - Nature recycles everything
Week 2: June 24-27th
Nature Detectives:
Why is a box turtle’s tail so short? How come baby salamanders have gills? How do some animals survive completely underground? Discover the answers to these questions, and more, as you study organisms from the pond, prairie, woods, and soil. Investigate amazing animals and the adaptations that make them special.
Field Camp: Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park is Montana's first and best-known state park featuring one of the most decorated limestone caverns in the Northwest. Naturally air conditioned, these spectacular caves lined with stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and helictites are electrically lighted and safe to visit. Above ground, a self-guided nature trail provides opportunities to understand the natural surroundings.
Local connection:
Green theme: Native plants
Week 3: (3-day week) July 1-3 (Closed Thursday, July 4th)
Symphony of the Five Senses:
Move like a mole, taste like a butterfly, and hear like a deer in this camp all about the five senses. Meet local animals and explore the ways they use their senses to survive in the wild. Practice your sensing skills when you make music and art. This camp is perfect for anyone who wants to get messy and explore the great outdoors.
Local collaboration: “Sounds of the Wild West” celebrates the Crown of the Continent, Upper Missouri, High Plains and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems through 25 sound recordings, five maps and nearly 30 images. The project is a collaboration between Montana State University’s Acoustic Atlas and Esri, a company that helps people to tell stories with maps.
Local connection: Montana State University
Green theme: Sound, light and sensory pollution
Week 4: July 8-11th
Nature's Superheroes:
Discover the superpowers of animals and plants at GBMS, and unleash your own heroic abilities at this exciting camp.
Rescue plants and animals from invasive super-villains. Learn how animals achieve super speed, invisibility, and night vision, and practice using those powers in your own life. On the last day of the week, we’ll create capes and masks!
We'll additionally learn a lot about the superpowers of local animals using provided from the Wildlife Superpowers Exhibit at Glacier National Park!
Local connection:
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Burdock Eradication Project with the Gallatin Valley Land Trust
Green theme: Everything is connected
Week 5: July 15-18th
Adventure & Animals:
Run as fast as a cheetah! Jump higher than a bullfrog! How do different animals move with four legs, two legs, or no legs at all? Learn about our animal and insect neighbors this week, and try your best impersonation for the Animal Olympics! Meet Montana’s amazing animals and learn about their gold medal adaptations.
Field Camp: The last day of the camp is a fun-filled adventure race - you can participate or cheer others on! In an adventure race, you can have teams do a combination of the following – run, hike, bike, climb, perform team challenges, answer trivia questions, etc.
Local Connection:
Green theme: Human kinetic energy
Week 6: July 22-25th
Make a splash!
Dive into this camp and investigate the water all around us. Explore water from every angle as you dip, measure, and splash.
This summer our campers will follow the water as it flows through streams, ponds, organisms, the atmosphere, and the ground. Along the way we will learn about the living things that depend on freshwater, and the non-living things (including pollution) that affect our freshwater ecosystems and resources.
Take note: "stream time" and "sprinkler time" will be a guarantee!
Field Camp: Study wetlands to design your own water filter, and observe aquatic animals in the wild
Local connection:
Green theme: Water conservation
Week 7: July 29- August 1st
Imagin-arium!
Bring your imagination and curiosity for this creative camp! Make small waterways, dams, boats, pinwheels, streamers, kites, small hot air balloons, and more. Bring your curiosity, ingenuity, and a change of clothes - because we may get wet!
Creativity abounds with creative crafts, game challenges, and even a chance to design your own theme park what rides would you create?
Field Camp: will explore local creeks and learn how they fit into the watershed. There's so much fun to be had with water in the summer heat!
Local connection:
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Hyalite Reservoir day trip and Crescent Lake hike.
Green theme: Solar energy and other renewable sources of energy
Week 8: August 5 - 8th
Ready, Set, Rescue!
Be prepared when nature strikes! Investigate everything from wild animals to our pets, and learn about kindness and compassion for animals. Learn about preventing wildfires, campfire safety, and the search & rescue responders who keep our community safe! Learn drones, engineer rescue devices, create recovery plans for rescue dogs, and explore the environmental impact of wildfires.
Field Camp: Day trip to Yellowstone in addition to regular camp activities. This will be a long day! Scientists in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are using paleoecology–the study of historical human-caused and natural events –to reconstruct a record of wildfires across the region. With this historical record of fire’s impacts on forests and grasslands, scientists can make predictions about how fire will impact the West in times of changing climate.
Local connection:
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Western Montana Search Dogs
Green theme: Understanding Fire
Week 9: August 12-15th
Love Where You Live:
Our most popular camp of the summer!
We will work together to make Bozeman a more beautiful, happier, and cleaner place to live with a variety of projects to help local charities.
Learn about all the ways that we can help make the world a better place and little things we can all do to help those in need, enjoying the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.
Local Connection:
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- a Grizzly Bear Rescue & Education Sanctuary
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Green theme: How can you make a difference?
Summer Celebration
The last day of the week is our Summer Celebration party, with a bounce-house, games and delicious treats!
Party is open for all summer campers and incoming students are welcome on Thursday, August 15th. 3 - 5pm. All invited!
