With summer in full swing, The Cibolo Center for Conservation offers an array of camps to engage area pre-teens in nature, art and culinary activities.
The camp program, which began June 3 and runs until Aug. 2, will vary each week while tying back to conservation and environmental awareness.
“The whole idea of nature camp, and one of the things that is underutilized, is the value of summers,” said Noah Lawrence, The Cibolo director of nature education.
“We hear from parents all the time that so many kids get out of school and they go into what we call ‘brain rot.’ We try to make our summer camp as meaningful and impactful as possible,” Lawrence said. Children 5-12 are welcome to attend. Nature and art camps run Monday to Friday; nature camp spans 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., while art camp lasts 1:30-4:30 p.m.
The first week of camp June 3-7 was called “step into summer.” The theme centered around how most ecosystems interconnect. Campers visited the marsh, riparian and the tall-grass prairie while also playing games.
“We really value ourselves in having excellence in our programming,” Lawrence said. “We want to create opportunities for (all campers) to develop problem-solving skills. We want to create opportunities for them to socialize in an emotionally healthy way.”
“We want to give them opportunities to be outside, to push themselves physically in ways that are healthy and in ways that are appropriate,” he said.
All activities are held at the Cibolo Nature Center and Herff Farm, where kids will explore more than 160 acres of nature.
For more than 32 years the Cibolo Center has promoted the conservation of natural resources through education and stewardship. Along with these summer camps Herff Farms is home to the center’s Nest Nature school, a preschool where nature and research-based teaching take center stage.
At the start of each new week, kids are broken into designated groups and sent to their assigned camp counselors. There they begin the morning with a song to help acquaint them to one another.
“We make sure kids understand what is expected of them,” Lawrence said. “We all participate in songs. These songs are what we call ‘repeat-after-me songs’ and ‘do as I do’ songs. We might have kids that are nervous, so by seeing our counselors do things that are silly, it sets a good tone that this is a safe space and are able to express themselves.”
Activities are divided into 15-minute increments. During the week of June 10-14, kids spent time playing and familiarizing themselves with different types of animals, learning about and interacting with worms and chickens.
“Every Wednesday is our ‘farm day,’” he said. “We drop them off at the nature center and hike all the way over to the farm.”
Afternoon campers participate in art camp, where they will spend time channeling their inner Picasso with an artistic focused lesson plan.
“We do get a lot of bleedover because parents are going to need somewhere for their kids to go all day. They will go from nature camp straight into art camp,” Lawrence said. Art camp focuses on much more indoor time.
“It’s going to be focused on calmer, artistically inclined skills, whereas nature camp, we’re going to be using insect nets and be outside hiking. Art camp will be more thoughtful and have a slower pace,” he said.
For details on The Cibolo’s summer nature and art camps, including prices, dates and remaining activities, visit: https://cibolo.org/
“We want to give them opportunities to be outside, to push themselves physically in ways that are healthy and appropriate.”
— Noah Lawrence The Cibolo nature education director
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