Welcome to Bug Camp at MSU Tollgate Farm! We are extremely excited to spend the week with your camper and learn all about bugs!
Our campers are divided into 4 groups based on our campers’ age: Ms. Jenny leads the Red Peppers, Ms. Nicole leads the Orange Peppers, Ms. Erika leads the Yellow Peppers, and Ms. Mandy leads the Green Peppers. We start each day with a flag ceremony, and then split into our pepper groups to start the day’s activities.
We take care of the farm’s animals every morning, and today the Green Peppers fed the young chickens, ducks and goose. The Red Peppers bottle fed our three goat kids while the Orange Peppers fed and watered the adult chickens and collected eggs. The Yellow Peppers made sure the pasture chickens had fresh food, water, and grass to scratch in.
Red Peppers feeding the baby goats.
Yellow Peppers meeting the goats!
Green Peppers helping care for the chickens.
The campers went for a hayride around the farm and played some icebreaker games to get to know each other. The Green and Yellow Peppers rode together, and the Orange and Red Peppers took their wagon ride together.
Green and Yellow Peppers playing parachute games.
During our morning Garden Kitchen session, campers snacked on sugar snap peas and took a walk in the garden to see all of the veggies we’ll be using during the rest of the week.
Red Peppers take a walk through the garden.
After lunch, we went on a scavenger hunt to find some insects around the farm. We made our own sweep nets during the morning meet-and-greet session, and we used these nets to catch our specimens.
Orange Peppers search for bugs near the pond.
Chickens are great insect hunters, and we took one of our young chickens into the orchard to see what she could find. It was a hot and sunny day today, so our chicken friend was more interested in cooling off in the shade than hunting for bugs. Chickens have great eyesight and can move very fast if they see a juicy bug!
Orange Peppers hanging out with a chicken in the orchard.
During the afternoon Garden Kitchen session, we made Spider Oat Bites! This no-bake recipe is lots of fun to create, and the campers loved getting their hands in the mix. As one camper said, “Who knew that kids could make something so delicious?!”
Yellow Peppers mixing their Spider Oats Bites.
As part of our week-long STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) project, we are participating in the Lost Ladybug Project. This effort was started by Cornell University, the National Science Foundation, and 4-H. Native Ladybug populations are being replaced by foreign species, and it is important to study their whereabouts to try and prevent other species from becoming so rare. In order to aid scientists in tracking ladybugs’ whereabouts, they have created an app for people who find ladybugs to take photos and log their location. We will be participating in this research all week and logging all of the ladybugs we find around the farm.
Green Peppers learning about ladybugs.
The first day of Bug Camp was wonderfully fun! We’ve made new friends and learned quite a bit in just the first day, and we can’t wait to spend the rest of the week with your awesome campers.
Spider Oat Bites
Ingredients
- 1 cup (dry) oatmeal
- 2/3 cup toasted coconut flakes
- 1/2 cup sunbutter
- 1/2 cup ground flaxseed or wheat germ or wheat bran
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips or cacao nibs (optional)
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 Tbsp. chia seeds (optional)
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Directions
- Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until thoroughly mixed. Cover and let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.
- Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever size you would like. (Mine were about 1″ in diameter.) Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.
- Makes about 20-25 oat balls.