• July 15-19, 2024 Blue Skye Farm & Forest Camp (no prerequisites)
• Aug 26-30, 2024 Advanced Farm & Forest Camp (with prerequisite of any prior camp)
Give your child the gift of our Blue Skye Farm & Forest day camps. July 15-19 is excellent for ages 8-15 (and seven year olds okay with older sibling at camp) who want to learn to work efficiently with tools, the soil, water, people, plants and animals. August 26-30 is excellent for ages 8-15 with prerequisite of at least one of our camps in a prior week or year who love service work and have an entrepreneurial spirit, with prerequisite of at least one of our camps in a prior week or year.
Enjoy beautiful Clark’s Creek Park and surrounding neighborhood including our very own Blue Skye Farm where we will explore gardens, farm animals and the old pioneer trolley route through the woods. Campers will work on the farm and surrounding conservation forest lands, learning the full circle life from seed to market, rain collection to wetland mitigation, and compost to animal care.
Instruction runs from 9:00-4:00 with drop off between 8:30-9:15, and pick-up between 3:45-4:30. Campers are grouped with others closest to their age within our hallmark 6-1 average student-teacher ratio that’s so critical for safe and profound outdoor experiences this year. You can also check out our day camps at Lake Sammamish.
July 15-19, 2024: Blue Skye Farm & Forest Camp (topics may vary based on instructor experience and camper interest)
- Follow the old Tacoma-Puyallup Trolley Route (founded by Ezra Meeker) through Clark’s Creek Park
- Tour a neighboring farm to learn about cows, pigs, sheep, goats and more
- Create a farm stand to sell extra harvested produce
- Meet and care for the chickens, bunnies and mealworms (the fertilizer producers!) of Blue Skye Farm
- Actively garden – prepare the soil, plant vegetable seeds, identify and remove (or eat!) weeds, water, prepare and apply natural fertilizer
- Harvest veggies, fruit and herbs and use them to make food, medicine and art
- Learn about rain collection
- Build a mini compost bin
- Design and implement a restoration project to enhance salmon, plant and wildlife habitat in the Clark’s Creek watershed
- Scavenger hunt to old growth trees in upper Clark’s Creek Park
- Look at old maps and satellite images to understand the landscape we’re working with
- Identify insects (pollinators, invasives, beneficial predators, etc.) and explore the roles they play in the ecosystem
- Release native leaf-cutter bees and protect developing mason bees from predators
- And more…
Aug 26-30, 2024: Itinerary for the Advanced Farm & Forest Camp
Itinerary to be determined based on what we do during the previous Farm & Forest week. Campers may:
- Create a farm stand to sell extra produce that we harvest and process (campers split farm stand proceeds!)
- Prepare a bed for mushrooms
- Create a plot for wetland restoration
- Spend the day at Soul & Soil Farm – meet Hilo (the pig!) and her goat, chicken and duck friends, do some farm projects then make a meal together
- Measure forest canopy cover and learn about the importance of trees – protecting the land from temperature extremes and erosion, carbon sequestration, habitat, etc
- Make a nutrient dense bone broth with mirepoix
- Remove invasive species in an adjacent restoration area (including exploration, animal and bird surveys to see who is living in the area and may interact with the farm)
- And more…
Daily Camp Schedule, Pick-Up & Drop-Off Directions
Meet at the Clark’s Creek Park – South Shelter, 1710 12th Ave SW, Puyallup WA 98371 located one mile west of the Puyallup Fairgrounds. The best arrival time is 8:45-9:00 am, and the best departure time is 3:45-4:00 pm.
8:30-9:00 Check-Ins & Morning Care (no early check-ins available)
9:00-9:15 Songs, Stories, Stretches & Late Check-Ins
9:15-11:45 Morning Lessons with snack break at 10:30
11:45-1:15 Lunch, Games & Creek Wading
1:15-3:45 Afternoon Lessons with snack break at 2:30
3:45-4:00 Best Pick-Up Time
4:00-4:30 Aftercare & Late Pick-Ups
Camp Leaders
Camp Directors Kim & Chris Chisholm are on site all week teaching groups and directing staff instructors at our hallmark 6-1 average student-teacher ratio that’s critical for safe and profound outdoor experiences. Read our FAQ’s for more details and check out camp testimonials dating all the way back to 1997.
Health Protocols
Hygiene protocols will remain the same as last year as long as there is still no evidence of Covid transmission in the outdoors with plenty of room to spread out. To start each day, campers must pass our health screening before being allowed to participate in camp. If there are reports of group participants who came in contact with an infection, we may provide n95 masks for participants of that group to wear when less than 3-6 feet from others. As before the pandemic, we will continue requiring hand sanitizing whenever sharing tools and materials, before entering toilets, and we train campers with proper hand washing after campers exit toilet facilities with doors left open between uses when possible to ensure ventilation.
Full vaccinations are strongly encouraged – we follow the scientific consensus – with tetanus shot (usually given as part of the normal Tdap vaccine series) considered the most important in the field of outdoor education. Otherwise, we know that due to our 100% outdoor setting, combined with health screenings, contact tracing, supervised hand washing, bathroom ventilation, mask use when exposure has been reported in a group, and individual/family style tenting at overnight camps, the risk of disease transmission has been negligible at Wolf Camp, so other vaccination records are not required. Please click here for full details on our health and safety protocols during the pandemic era, and see the latest CDC summer camp guidelines.
Day Camp Tuition in Puyallup/Tacoma
$495 is our full tuition rate in Puyallup, but we operate on a sliding scale and we don’t turn anyone away from being able to attend at least one week of camp due to financial reasons. Just email us and let us know how much you can contribute to the cost of camp, or to apply for financial aid from the Conservation College via the Max Davis Scholarship fund, click here and submit answers to their 8 simple questions. If your camper has physical disabilities that make other camps inaccessible, please call to discuss the accommodations we have available and register over the phone at literally any contribution level. To contribution to the Conservation College – Max Davis Scholarship fund, click here.
You will need to pack a healthy lunch, water and substantial snacks every day. Tuition includes t-shirt at your first camp with us, then in subsequent camps a choice of orienteering compass, recommended field guide, firesteel and other outdoor essentials depending on number of camps attended, age and availability.
Registration
STEP 1 – Reserve your spots in camp by making $100 deposit per camper per week (or $50 if requesting scholarship or reduced tuition) via one of the following methods:
• Zelle using our email address as recipient with a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 or ex 2 with a credit card to register over the phone;
• Or use the PayPal system appearing below after January 20th;
STEP 2 – If this is your camper’s first year with us, complete our once-in-a-lifetime Registration Form within one week of making your deposit, otherwise we will have to refund you and give your spot(s) to others. We’ll also email you Word/PDF versions of the registration form in case you’re having trouble downloading or making a copy of our Google Doc form which you can send or share back to our email address for review within one week to maintain your reservation. If your camper has attended Wolf Camp in the past, a new registration form is not needed, but we will may email a questionnaire for your camper to submit as application for this year.
STEP 3 – Pay balance before or during your summer camp weeks. We’ll email you an invoice this spring with camp prep info and balance payment options (Zelle, PayPal, Check, Credit Card) that can be done in advance or during your first camp week. All payments are non-refundable unless we refuse your registration. However, if you cancel (at any time for any reason is fine) we will save your payments as credit for you to use in future years, or you can choose to have us move the funds into our scholarship account if you prefer. The best practice is to make the minimum deposits to register, and then wait to pay the remaining balances during camp via Zelle using our email address as recipient saving us time and transaction fees, or you can PayPal us at that same email address, or give us a check or have us run a credit card on site.
Or Email us to be put on our our list for this program in the future. We always keep your information absolutely private, and will never share it.
Refund Policy: Payments are not refundable unless we don’t accept your application. If you cancel for any reason, you may receive a full credit good through the following calendar year on appropriate and available programs listed on our schedule, although an additional deposit is needed to secure your spot in the future program. If a program you sign up for is canceled and not rescheduled at a time you can attend, you may receive a full refund except in cases of natural (weather, geologic, wildfire, etc) disasters, grid failures, epidemics, government shutdowns, conflicts or curfews, or other unforeseen emergencies making it unsafe for staff and/or attendees to reach or use program locations, in which case all payments made will be held by us without expiration date for your future use in appropriate/available programs of your choice. Reasons include the expenditure of funds (property rentals, advertising, materials, admin staff time, etc.) long before programs take place, i.e. deposits make it feasible for Wolf Camp to schedule programs in the first place, but our mutually understood agreement is that Wolf Camp will run the program at the safest available time in the future. Finally, no refund, nor credit, is given if a participant is asked to leave a program for inappropriateness as determined by our kids, youth and adult agreements for participation.
Day Camp Preparation: Agreements, Packing List and FAQ’s
Day Camp Agreements for Participation
Other FAQ’s – Frequently Asked Questions
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