| Summer Day Camps |
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Sunfield provides summer day camps for children ages four to young adults, offering experiences in farming, traditional and primitive skills, and the practical arts. Our program leaders look forward to sharing the joyful abundance of a summer season on Sunfield Farm.  For an overview of summer programs offered in 2013, see Download the two required 2013 registration forms here: Download the required 2013 permission & emergency forms here:
Registration and Cancellation Policy Please note that minimum enrollment for most of our camps is eight campers. If there is insufficient enrollment for a camp session, Sunfield will notify parents of registered campers ten days prior to the start of that camp. To ensure that all camps run as planned, please register as early as possible, or at least twelve days prior to the start date of the camp session in which you are interested. For more information, contact us. Sunfield Shepherds 4-H Summer Day CampThis camp is listed separately; see Sunfield Shepherds 4-H Summer Day Camp. Seedlings Kinder Camp
Our Seedlings class offers a delightful summer experience for preschool and kindergarten children. Together we explore the wonders of Sunfield’s meadows and woodlands, visit with the farm animals, create nature crafts, and observe the farmers at work in the fields. Each day together also includes circle time, story time, and singing. 
Rosaletta is a senior at Ithaca College in upstate New York, majoring in drama, and a member of the Ithaca College Honors Program. Rosaletta just completed a year abroad, studying at conservatories in Ireland and London. She’s loved Waldorf education since first attending her mother’s kindergarten class in New Zealand at the tender age of two; she continued in Waldorf education until eighth grade. Rosaletta has been volunteering for Sunfield since its inception. She has been an assistant for the Summer Seedlings camp for five years and last summer Rosaletta was the lead instructor. Rosaletta loves teaching and being with children and is excited to return to Sunfield once again this summer as a camp instructor. In addition to theatre and teaching, Rosaletta enjoys working with animals and spending time in nature. Explorers: Sunfield offers six different Explorers camps for children ages seven through twelve – descriptions, dates, times, and tuition fees for each follow below. Nature Studies / Survival SkillsPresented through a cooperative partnership between Sunfield and CedarRoot.
Note: Two different sessions of this weeklong camp are being offered this summer. This weeklong day camp utilizes the universal child passion of “survival” to teach valuable modern survival skills of teamwork and cooperation, the joy of learning, patience, and appreciation of the natural world. Our curriculum adventures into wildlife tracking, medicinal and edible plants, wilderness survival, and ecology. We foster creative thinking by stimulating problem solving, stretching students into greater self-sufficiency while honoring different learning styles. “Making household tools, growing and raising food for a family, learning to track animals and forage wild plants – many of the self-sufficiency skills that our grandparents took for granted – are now disappearing. I call them ‘endangered skills.’ Without creating the space for this knowledge to be passed to the next generation, these skills will be lost,” notes Leader Scott Brinton.  Scott Brinton is a co-founder of CedarRoot Folk School, and co-owner of Mystery Bay Farm, a small-scale family farm and goat dairy operating on five acres on Marrowstone Island. Scott has over a decade of nature and garden education experience. He co-founded the Riekes Nature Studies Department in California, taught Environmental Science at Peninsula College and was a garden educator at Islandwood. Most recently, Scott founded CedarRoot to help further natural history and rural skills education on the Olympic Peninsula. Scott currently runs wilderness expeditions and teaches numerous classes in nature study, year-round, for adults and children, including the popular after-school Nature Awareness Program at Sunfield Waldorf School. Camp Playground: Fun with Body, Community, and EarthOffered through a cooperative partnership between Sunfield and BCollective Integrative Arts and Ecology.
During this week of fun and games in nature, we build skills in a variety of embodied arts, such as acro-balancing, creating human mandalas, theater improvisation, making and spinning hula-hoops, and much more. Through kinesthetic play in the meadows, forests, and gardens, together we create a more grounded connection with our bodies, and our sense of place and community, redefining the word “playground.” Participants go home with a handmade hula hoop.  Nala Wala is a performer, educator, and homesteader devoted to active cross pollination between the arts and ecology. She holds a MA in Integrative Arts and Ecology, and is founding member of the BCollective, an organization dedicated to the creation of healthy and sustainable culture through the embodied arts. With eight years of experience as a performing and teaching artist, Nala is a regular teaching artist at Grant Street Preschool and Kindergarten. She and her husband practice off-the-grid homesteading on Marrowstone Island. Nala teaches about Body, Ecology, and Community at venues such as the Madrona Mindbody Institute (Port Townsend), Velocity Dance Center (Seattle) and The Village Building Convergence (Portland). More information is available at www.bcollective.org Fiber and Felting: Design and Make Your Own Felt Hat
What would you do if you couldn’t buy clothing at a store? This camp teaches how to make simple clothing from felting – an ancient technique that has been revived today as an art form. We begin with raw wool fleeces local to the Olympic Peninsula, learn how to wash and card them, and play with local plants to dye the wool beautiful colors. By the end of camp everyone will have made a unique summer-weight felt hat or other garment. Children wear their creations home on the last day.  A fiber artist, farmer, and childcare provider, Natalia Robinson has worked in North America, Guatemala, and New Zealand rediscovering the ancient art of harvesting, cleaning, dying, and processing animal fiber. She graduated from The Evergreen State College with a BA in Fiber Arts, and completed her first year of Waldorf Teacher Training at Sound Circle in Seattle. Natalia is excited to combine her three great passions – fiber, teaching, and farming – this summer at Sunfield. Advanced Survival Skills
Come spend lots of time in the woods with outdoor tracking and survival experts! Through the use of games, exploration, music, and fun in a small community group, the students will learn outdoor survival skills including animal tracking, traditional survival skills, medicinal and edible plants, wild food/primitive cooking, teamwork and self-esteem. On Monday and Tuesday the students will create a comfortable camp that they will utilize later in the week. In preparation of the Wednesday-Thursday campout, participants create tools and cooking implements, prepare wild foods and build shelters. This camp is specifically designed for students who have some wilderness experience and are ready to improve their skills within a supportive environment. For photo and bio of Scott Brinton see above under “Nature Studies/Survival Skills” Sunfield Pioneers Camp
Join life on the farm and learn how things were done in the olden days. Animal care, goat milking, harvesting, cooking over a fire, making butter and ice cream by hand, crafts, games, and stories fill our time together.  A founding member of Sunfield, Isolde Perry received Waldorf teacher training at Rudolf Steiner College and also trained in Extra Lesson, which is used to help educationally challenged children. She has taught in two Waldorf schools and has been utilizing Waldorf education and offering Extra Lesson in homeschool settings for eleven years. She graduated a group of eighth graders in 2010. Isolde especially loves singing. Plants: Herbs, Crafts, Remedies, and Recipes
Using plants found right on Sunfield Farm, learn how to make lip balm, healing tea, and soothing salve. Rose elixirs, honeysuckle/rose/nettle shampoo, or natural bug spray are a few of the potions we might concoct, depending on what the land has to offer. Learn how to safely identify, harvest, and reveal the natural healing power of the plants that grow all around us. Each day includes playing games, making a craft or potion, and enjoying lunch outside with a local wild tea or wild edible treat. For photo and bio of Isolde Perry see above under “Pioneer Camp”Afternoons on the Farm
During our afternoons together, we’ll help the Sunfield farmers with their work – collecting eggs and tidying nesting boxes, harvesting and arranging flowers for the CSA, and making sure the rabbits, chickens, goats, and sheep have plenty of drinking water in the heat of summer. Each afternoon, our time together includes games, a walk, and a snack. For an overview of summer programs offered in 2013, see here: Download the two required 2013 registration forms here: Download the required 2013 permission & emergency forms here: For more information, contact us. |