Campers checking out lion enrichment
Camp Zoofari has only been over for a month, although it seems like it was yesterday. But as soon as one camp ends, the planning for the next begins!
Our first planning efforts are for Winter Camp Zoofari. This camp is structured like our summer camp, but instead of registering for a whole week, campers register by the day. The dates for Winter Camp this year are December 28, 29, 30, and 31. Right now, we are working on selecting our theme and the topics for each day. Each day has its own topic, and every age group learns about the same subject, which makes dinner conversation that night easy! We won’t have registration open until we choose our theme, but if you are interested in Winter Camp Zoofari, keep an eye on the Education section of the Houston Zoo website. We’ll have a page available soon!
While we’re all thinking of theme and topic ideas, we might as well keep our brains running on the same track and come up with camp topics for next summer at the same time. We usually keep several topics from the previous summer and simply update them, as kids who took Scat Attack or Globe Trotters two years in a row can tell you. A lot of campers come back every year (we did get voted Best Day Camp in Houston, you know) so we try to offer new topics and themes each summer.
Learning about animals at Camp Zoofari
To that end, I spent an hour walking zoo grounds today, looking to our animals for inspiration. They delivered, too – I came up with 5 potential new topics just during that walk! Not every idea turns out to be a good one, and maybe only one or two will end up chosen for next summer, so I’m going to keep my ideas to myself for now. I will give you a few tiny hints, though: I took special note of tall birds, hoofed mammals, and range maps.
Inspiration for topics can come from more than just our animals – perhaps you can help, too! Are there any animals in the zoo that your kids can’t get enough of watching? Any animal topics you’d like us to explore?