KinPark Kids Camp

KinPark Kids Camp is a great opportunity for children ages 6 – 10 to learn plenty about gardening, nature, and food while making lasting memories and friendships at the KinPark Youth Urban Farm in downtown Duncan. Each day focuses on a different theme that is reflected in the day’s activities, discussions, and games.

Our goal is to teach children how to grow, harvest, and cook healthy food in a fun, hands-on, and engaging way, and provide them with opportunities to expand their physical, social and practical skills in order to live sustainably. Campers also learn team building and leadership skills through activities and games at KinPark. Many of our activities and games promote group problem solving, and leadership-taking for those who are older and wish to take on more responsibility at camp.

Aside from gardening, planting seeds, harvesting crops, and cooking, other activities include yoga, sports, crafts, skill-building games, reading and telling stories. Campers also get to engage in community-led workshops and activities put on by special guest facilitators!

A few of our activities:

• Gardening
  As KinPark Kids Camp is located at KinPark Urban Farm, campers have full access to farm crops and a greenhouse. They learn about seeding, growing, and harvesting veggies, berries, and herbs, as well as other farm skills such as composting, mulching, building structures, basic tool use and more.

• Local Food and Cooking
  Every Wednesday, campers take a cooking class at Cowichan Green Community’s commercial kitchen. Before cooking class they harvest ingredients from the farm at KinPark to use in their recipe. This facilitates a direct connection between where their food comes from and the food on their plate. They of course learn a variety of cooking skills during classes, such as safety, prepping and chopping ingredients, cooking, baking, and preserving. And the best part is, they get to eat their creations!

• Bugs and Bees
  Campers also learn about the important roles insects have in our ecosystem, and what they mean to our food systems. They take part in identifying pollinator plants, learning the names of different insects in the garden, and of course discussing what different bugs do. We love bees and always try to include bee-related activities. Local experts come to the park to pass their knowledge down to the campers and provide engaging educational activities.

• Recycling
  Campers learn about recycling and upcycling through activities, games, and crafts. They learn what can be recycled or composted and what cannot, and how our waste systems work. We are always planning new upcycling crafts and mending/repair activities to show how materials can be reused and repurposed instead of going to the garbage.

• Community Day
  Campers can feed their curiosity about the diversity of people that live together in our beautiful Cowichan Valley, participate in games and crafts that explore cultures, and practice community engagement by donating to the food bank, neighborhood excursions, and visits from guest facilitators.

• Water
  Water is life! Our urban farm is a great place to explore the importance of water, the way it cycles through earth and sky, and how to conserve it. Campers get to play with and make new water toys, explore rainwater harvesting, learn cool ways to keep plants hydrated in the summer heat and create their own rain gauges.
• Fix-it!
  From carpentry to mending clothes, the goal is to practice our hands-on skills. Campers are given safe, supervised opportunities to use hand tools, experiment with resourceful solutions to engineering challenges (like building a fort using a limited set of materials), and learn how to fix everyday objects instead of throwing them in the landfill!