Medieval Theme Event

Huzzah! (AKA Hooray!)



This past week we had our day camp and it was a lot of fun. Here a few of the things we did. This is long... but maybe if you are thinking of doing something similar you can use some of it...

Before we put this event on we visited the Georgia Renaissance Festival and got some ideas from books, and the internet.



Dreamcatcher Day Camp was held at Scout Haven in Acworth, Georgia. Swaying Pines was renamed Camp-A-Lot, Sunny Hill, Falcon's Roost and Greengrove stayed the same as they sounded right as is. Archery was Sherwood Forest, the path to Falcon's Roost (AKA Ben's Trail) was named the Dragon's Lair and each unit had a shire name. Canoeing was Loch Ness. Outdoor Cooking was known as The Golden Perch Inn.

We had banners which were put onto flat pieces of wood (roller shade sticks) with holes drilled, then a string ran from one hole to the other. We then took bamboo sticks (had them on hand) and put the strings onto the top end of them so the banners could hang downward loosely. The banner themselves were shaped in a rectangle going downwards with a ^ cut so there were two points hanging down.

We had a medieval actor from the Renaissance Festival come and do some juggling and other tricks for the kids. He was terrific and the kids loved it.

I did outdoor cooking. We had the girls make tarts in a box oven. I tried other recipes, but this one was fit that time period and could be made in less than 20-minutes which made me happy. I bought prepared pie crusts and cut 150 circles out of them with a custard cup. I re-rolled all the scraps to make some of them so nothing went to waste. I put sheets of kitchen wax (cut to size) between each one, then put them into groups of twelve and stuck them into plastic ziplock bags marked with the unit number on each one. I took a gallon ziplock and put each days into one so I could grab what I needed that morning.

The pudding (which represented custard) was instant vanilla pudding. I measured out 2-TBSPs and put them into sandwich baggies for each girl. I just kept them in one large ziplock and used them as needed. I had experimented at home and found that I could make it set up with 1/2 cup of milk but when I got to camp I found the heat was a problem the first day and they turned into a semi-liquidy mess which didn't pipe into the tarts well. By day two we adjusted the milk downward to 1/4 cup of milk and they were perfect. My PAL ran the station. We had bought disposable cupcake trays at Big Lots (2 pkg with six-cupcake holes each for 79 cents). She had them write their names on the bottom of the tray with permanent markers on the opposite side so when they flipped them they would be able to press dough into their own part of the pan. We had two tables with six girls each, which worked out well. We cooked them in the oven for 10 minutes while they mixed their pudding. The girls put their own milk in and mashed it up for a minute or so, then left it to sit for 5-minutes. At that time my PAL would take them over to the fire ring and talk about the box oven and how it worked, touch on fire safety, etc... then when the tarts came out of the oven and cooled for a couple of minutes, they would go back and we would cut apart the foil pan so each girl could pipe their pudding into the tart. Later we decided to pop the tarts out of the pans and let them eat them that way. We were able to recycle the pans doing it this way, which helped keep costs down a bit. We also found that a little cinnamon sugar helped with the taste before baking the tarts. I had the greatest PAL a person could ask for, so it went very well.

We had Apothecary instead of Mother Nature. The only thing I got to see was some bath salts and they smelled heavenly but I heard she made other wonderful things.

Arts and crafts made up mosaic frames and had the older girls sew tapestry type fabric into little purses with ribbon drawstrings. The youngest group made jester hats out of foam. CUTE!!! I didn't get to see everything this year, but I can say that the fast set mosaics were messy for our arts/crafts person. She thought the foamy shapes worked better. I did see those and they came out real cute. paper rose windows would be great for older girls as they are intricate.

The girls helped me to soak corn in the husks for the Thursday overnight. They were later wrapped in foil and put onto coals. Delicious! Their meal was great No serviceware was used, we had only hand food. It would have been neat to do chicken legs but we just didn't have time to cook them so they went out and got chicken nuggets from KFC. Girl's didn't mind a bit.

Dinner was served outside with tables going around the fire-ring on the outside. We used the benches from the fire-ring and chairs for seating. Our sign The Golden Perch Inn looked cute hanging in the area.