Camp Day 2013

For the last three years now at the Steam Museum, we've been running a summer event called "Free Camp Day" - it's a special day where we invite kids from subsidized day camps in Hamilton to come and enjoy a full day of fun stuff: free lunch, free transportation, relay races, art activities, train rides, puppet shows, snacks, and of course, museum tours!

This is all made possible by donations from people and companies in the community, and this year I got to organize the event. It ended up being a lot of fun, despite being the hottest day of the year so far (35 degrees!) 

We beat the heat with lots of cool water (which the kids got to drink from fancy reusable bottles, c/o Hamilton Water), freezies, and this cool new contraption, built by our resident grand wizard of making things, Nancy!

We haven't really come up with a name for it yet....so for now we'll just call it the PVC pipe sprinkler waterfall run-through thingy. I found the idea on Pinterest, which came from Instructables.com, and Nancy used her magic ways to make it happen. Everyone loved running through the water to cool down.

instructables.com

There were lots of other excellent activities too, including a Puppet Show also sponsored by Hamilton Water/Waste Water:

Puppet show sponsored by the Water Treatment Plant will obviously have lots of poop jokes

Train rides from the Golden Horseshoe Live Steamers:

Fun activities hosted by staff from Battlefield House Museum and Park, and Westfield Heritage Village: 

A delicious, halal-hotdog lunch, cooked up by the lovely ladies of CUPE Local 5167:

Chalk and bubbles just for kicks:

A "Trip of the Drip" relay race:

(more poop jokes here) 

And a quick tour of the Museum!

Julia explaining how Steam Engines work 

Really, really, a fun day - I hope for all the kids, as well as for me. Thanks to all of our awesome sponsors and partners, and to Caillin Kowalczyk who took all these lovely pictures! 

Seen and Heard

Little boy to mom, walking into the museum:
"It this a McDonalds?!" 

...

...we DO have the arches...

Overheard this past Sunday during Golden Horseshoe Live Steamer Day at the museum.

Screaming for Sanitation!

Yesterday at the Military Museum:

Adorable little girl to Grandma: "Gotta go bathroom!"

Grandma: "OK, you're a big girl, go on in, you can go by yourself!"

...


(goes in.)

....


Little girl, inside bathroom: "GRANDMA!!!! GRAAAAANDDDD--MAAAAAAA!!!!"

Grandma: "WHAT?! WHAT'S WRONG!?"

Little girl: "THEY HAVE PINK SOAP!!!!"

Grandma:

For the record, we do indeed have fabulous pink soap.

FISHIES!

At the Steam Museum, we have ventured into the realm of live exhibits. This Summer, we are installing our new and improved water-themed exhibition, Slippery When Wet. It's a fun, interactive exhibit all about the wonderful ways we, and other creatures, use water to live.

While learning a bit about wise water use and ecosystems,  kids (and curious adults too, of course) can try one of the many interactive activities - giant game of snakes and ladders perhaps? Or maybe try pumping water with a Waterloo Pump, or discovering how a toilet works? All sorts of fun things in store. Including a gigantic outhouse.  

A waterloo pump

The reading nook 

Giant outhouse

But, this time around we've got something extra special - two live water ecosystems to observe. The first has little darting silvery fish and live plants, and the second has slow, slimy snails.

Live ecosystems! 

Does this make us a zoo, then? I remember a while back, the ROM hosted it's own WATER exhibition, and the most memorable part was their live collection of fish, crustaceans, and (most fascinating/disturbing of all) a tank full of blood-sucking lampreys. I have to say I'm glad we will NOT be having any lampreys.

I have tentatively named the fish we DO have Inky, Blinky, and Stinky - but it's pretty hard to remember who is who. The snails are all nameless; perhaps we should have a voting area to determine their names, or a visitor suggestion box?

The exhibit officially opens June 21, 2013.