<h1><span style="color: #00ff00;">GREEN EARTH WEEK!</span></h1>
<span style="color: #000000;">As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun! This was the first week here at Future Stars and we're kicking it off right. The Gophers enjoyed different activities that we provided for them throughout the week. In Science we did several cool projects that involved the three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. <strong>Vincent</strong> really enjoyed making paper from scratch. As we move on to Art class with Sarah, the kids were able to make frog origami and watch The Lorax. With the frog origami, <strong>Brianna</strong> created the frog that jumped the highest which was super cool to watch. When we weren't in Science or Art, we were keeping the kids busy with several different sports. One of the sports we played was soccer where both <strong>Ella</strong> and <strong>Maya </strong>demonstrated their awesome skills while leading their team to victory with a final score of 6-1. Another game we played was 4-square where <strong>Delaina </strong>loved hitting the ball and getting her fellow Gophers out and advancing to the King square. We also played water-polo in the pool where <strong>Sarah </strong>kept a strong wall of defense and hardly let the ball get past her. On top of having sport, game, and pool, the kids were able to cool down in the computer lab and play games and listen to music. <strong>Marlena</strong> and <strong>Jared</strong> in particular really enjoyed this down time where they were able to play the games of their choice. Last but certainly not least, we have our camper of the week! This camper was always holding doors for everyone, following the counselor's instructions, and participating in every activity we threw at him. Congratulations to <strong>Parker</strong> for being our camper of the week! It was a delight getting to know all of the kids and we can't wait to see them next week! Happy first week of summer!</span>

Your Counselors,

Maria and Eleanor

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<h1><span style="color: #3366ff;">Red, White, and Blue Week</span></h1>
<span style="color: #000000;">The second week at Future Stars was red, white and blue week, where campers showed their patriotic colors and had some fun while they were at it. On Monday, we played dodgeball, where <strong>Ella </strong>excelled and showed how well she could play.<strong> Nadia </strong>had fun in the pool during free swim, and was great at human-basketball. On Tuesday, <strong>Luca</strong> and <strong>Shaymus </strong>competed against each other to win Knockout, with Shaymus winning once and Luca winning once, ending in a fun tie.<strong> Delia</strong> loved learning about Fuel for Fun in Science, which taught us how to eat healthy to take care of our bodies. In Art, we created skeletons out of different types of pasta, and <strong>Julia </strong>made an amazing creepy skeleton. <strong>Catie </strong>also added exceptional detail to her skeleton, making sure that all the elbow noodles of the skull were aligned correctly. Wednesday in the pool was Water Polo Wednesday, where <strong>Molly </strong>put up great offense for her team, scoring 4 goals to win the game 7-6. On the other end, <strong>Tommy </strong>put up great defense, stopping quite a few sure goals. Later in the week, we competed in Relay races, where <strong>Delania </strong>and <strong>Marlena </strong>showed their speedy swimming skills by keeping a ball in a cone in front of them, while swimming around a counselor. They both made impressive times! <strong>Brianna </strong>showed how artistic she was when we made plates in art, including all the important grain, vegetable, fruit, dairy, and protein groups to make a healthy plate. <strong>Stephanie</strong> and <strong>Emma </strong>loved computers, when they had an opportunity to relax and play games. Tuesday was cheer day and <strong>Maya </strong>showed the whole camp her singing skills, winning the cheer competition with her original song and singing. Congratulations to <strong>Maya </strong>for being our camper of the week! Have a great Fourth of July and we can't wait to see them all back for another great week of camp.</span>

Your Counselors,

Eleanor and Drew

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<h1><span style="color: #ffcc00;">Blue Gold Week</span></h1>
<span style="color: #000000;">The third week of camp was Blue Gold week, where campers got the chance to show their sportsmanship and competitive side in various Olympic style events.  On Monday, we got to see a cool fencing demonstrating by Liberty Fencing Company. On Tuesday the Gophers got the chance to fence themselves and the group had a blast. <strong>Griffin </strong>and <strong>Catie </strong>showed skills they didn't even know they had, and had such a fun time learning the different fencing techniques. <strong>Delia</strong> worked with her group in Hollywood to come up with a group cheer for cheer day on Tuesday. <strong>Gianna P. </strong>and <strong>Tommy</strong> worked together very well during a game of steal the bacon in swimming. This week in Art class, the gophers have been working on shading and drawing dragons based off of a step by step Youtube video. <strong>Kayla, Gianna R., </strong>and <strong>Delania </strong>did a great job drawing and coloring their dragons.During Hollywood, the group played guess the celebrity, and <strong>Sarah </strong>was a great contributor to her group. In sport on Tuesday the gophers played against the dragons in dodgeball. <strong>Catie </strong>and <strong>Brianna </strong>were awesome players and got a lot of their opponents out. In science on Wednesday, the group got a chance to make bubbles in a unique way. They used pieces of string and straws to make big bubbles. <strong>Ella </strong>used her resources to make the bubbles work when the original idea didn't work. In science of Thursday, the gophers used coffee filters, water, and markers to make a tie-dye type concept. <strong>Lucia </strong>and <strong>Maya </strong>made beautiful creations, that they then made into flowers. On Thursday, the camp had the Blue Gold Olympics! The gophers had a blast and were so supportive of their teammates.<b> Stephanie </b>and <strong>Emma </strong>cheered on their teammates during the water relay, where the teams had to fill a bucket with water as fast as they could. <strong>Marlena</strong> showed great effort during another event, called the over-under relay in which the group stands in a line and passes the ball to each player. Since there wasn't an even number of each of the two teams, <strong>Tommy </strong>offered to go to the gold team even though he was on the blue team. <strong>Luca </strong>and <strong>Nadia </strong>explored their own jump roping skills after seeing the Bungee Jumpers perform on Friday. <strong>Evan </strong>did a fantastic job on his first day of camp of Friday and made beautiful tie-dye paper during science. Also, congratulations to <strong>Brianna </strong>who was the gopher camper of the week! She showed awesome sportsmanship and always listened to and followed the rules.                                                                            </span>

<span style="color: #ffcc00;"> <span style="color: #000000;">Your counselors,</span><span style="color: #888888;">
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Laura, Chris, and Nick

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<h1><span style="color: #339966;">Safari Week</span></h1>
For the fourth week of camp at Future Stars, the theme was Safari. This week, we adventured different aspects of a safari in art and science and even explored the Del Val campus to complete our very own photo scavenger hunt. In Hollywood this week, we had Jensen Music come and teach the campers some basics of music. <strong>Vincent </strong>and <strong>Lucia</strong> showed off their musical knowledge by answering many difficult questions about the clefs and music staff. Also in Hollywood, we had many opportunities for karaoke and <strong>Gianna </strong>and <strong>Emma </strong>shined in their performances of many current pop songs. They showed their confidence in their amazing singing abilities in front of the whole group. While karaoke was happening, <strong>Shaymus</strong> was breaking out in dance moves and impressed everyone with his ability to break dance. In art, <strong>Ella </strong>created an awesome chalk drawing of a zebra, while <strong>Catie </strong>had a spectacular oil pastel drawing of a lion. During science, <strong>Julia </strong>and <strong>Sam </strong>were very interested in the caterpillars and butterflies that were displayed in science. They asked great questions and showed a great curiosity towards the life cycle of a butterfly. <strong>Marlena</strong>, <strong>Stephanie</strong>, <strong>Sarah</strong> had a very funny skit that they used to share their information that they gained about the zebras that live in the savanna biome. In the pool, <strong>Delania </strong> and <strong>Nadia </strong>won many of the freestyle and breaststroke races, and they were great examples for all of the other kids who were learning the strokes. While playing dodge ball against the counselors in the group, <strong>Caiden </strong>and <strong>Anthony </strong>were successful in not only dodging the balls, but also getting most of the counselors out. <strong>Isha </strong>dominated in World Cup soccer by scoring multiple goals and leading her team to victory. Lastly, we would like to congratulate <strong>Paula </strong>on being camper of the week for the gopher group! She was very respectful and a pleasure to have in our group this week!

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Your Counselors,

Sarah, Nolan, and Chris

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<h1><span style="color: #ff0000;">Carnival Week</span></h1>
<span style="color: #000000;">This week at Future Stars is always a very exciting week for both campers and counselors! Carnival week is always very entertaining with having a Solo Circus on Monday and our very own carnival on Friday. In Hollywood, we experimented different carnival games to get ready for the carnival. <strong>Marlena</strong> even brought in her own game that she made up for the group to play; everyone had a blast playing it! One game in particular was very challenging, but <strong>Sam </strong>and <strong>Gianna P.</strong> were successful in completing the challenge. They had to toss a tennis ball into a small hole that was the exact size as the tennis ball.  Also during Hollywood, we put our skills to the test while playing charades. <strong>Delia </strong>and <strong>Kayla </strong>lead their team to victory, both as actors and guessers.   <strong>Paula</strong> showed us her artistic ability and creativity while recreating a very famous circus painting while in art. Also, <strong>Chloe</strong> and <strong>Emma </strong>made very stylish pinwheels that go along with the carnival theme. Science this week consisted of very new aspects of science, but that didn't stop <strong>Delania </strong>and <strong>Catie</strong>! They showed us their knowledge of forces and friction by answering many tricky questions and participating in the demonstrations. While the Solo Circus was here, <strong>Stephanie</strong> was called to the front to help the juggler when he dropped one or needed to add another ball or pin. On Tuesday, we had Belgium horses come and give us a hayride around the Del Val campus. <strong>Gianna R. </strong>enjoyed this hayride and loved the chance to see the farm animals that Del Val has on their campus. On Wednesday, we had crazy sock day and <strong>Lucia</strong> showed her spirit by having socks on her feet, hands, and even in her hair! <strong>Shaymus</strong> and <strong>Luca </strong>were experts at playing Pac-Man tag, making it look a lot easier than it actually was. <strong>Nadia </strong>was an excellent swimmer this week. She was a great team player in water polo and was very hard to catch while the kids played Categories. Finally, our camper of the week this week was <strong>Julia</strong>! She was very enthusiastic all week and very sweet to the campers and counselors!</span>

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<h1><span style="color: #3366ff;">Artic Adventure Week</span></h1>
Happy Artic Adventure week Gophers! We had a great week exploring the Artic and all things cold! In Art we explored our cold side by completing various projects, like our melting snowmen! <strong>Catie</strong> and <strong>Delania</strong> loved learning how to shade and mix colors as they painted their snowmen to perfection. In Science this week we learned all about the artic starting with a lesson on how the animals in the Artic stay warm. <strong>Isha</strong> and <strong>Gianna R.</strong> enjoyed participating in various experiments that mimicked the fur of a polar bear and the blubber of a seal! On Wednesday we learned about the Northern Lights, <strong>Gianna P</strong>. informed the group about the lights after she saw them up close and personal. We were then challenged to build igloos out of blocks. <strong>Tommy</strong> and <strong>Luca</strong> one the challenge by creating the most structurally sound igloo! On Thursday in Science we learned that all snowflakes are unique by creating our very own snowflakes! <strong>Stephanie</strong> and <strong>Catherine</strong> enjoyed making their snowflakes as unique as possible! In Hollywood this week we had a lot of fun! On Monday we used our acting genes to play a few games of improvisation. <strong>Nadia</strong> and <strong>Julia</strong> wowed the crowd with their ability to think on their feet. On Tuesday we went on a campus wide scavenger hunt in search of the North Pole! Our campers deciphered clues to find the hidden treasure. <strong>Delia</strong> and <strong>Shaymus</strong> did a great job decoding all of the clues! On Wednesday we played a game called ten second object, where campers had ten seconds to use themselves to create any given object. <strong>Emma</strong> and <strong>Marlena</strong> had a blast as they contorted their bodies to fit the shapes. At the pool this week we a lot of fun despite the artic temperatures of the water! <strong>Sarah</strong> impressed us all during lessons, demonstrating an exceptional freestyle stroke. During free swim we played a round of King Fisher, where <strong>Brianna</strong> walked away victorious proving that she was the fasted swimmer in the pool! Our camper of the week is Griffin! Griffin came to camp everyday with a positive attitude and a smile on his face! He helped out both of the counselors when needed and listened carefully to all directions! Congratulations <strong>Griffin</strong>! We had a great week chilling in the Artic! Have a great weekend and we will see you on Monday!

Nick and Alyson

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Your Counselors,

Shane, Sarah, and Helen