Daycamps

Ahh! The great outdoors! With 144 acres of ocean-front property, lush rainforest and quiet creeks, YMCA Camp Elphinstone is an ideal location for learning in the great outdoors. Located on British Columbia's beautiful Sunshine Coast, YMCA Camp Elphinstone is just two kilometres north of the Langdale Ferry Terminal and a 40-minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver.

Through meaningful outdoor experiential learning, kids develop strong and healthy minds and bodies while they learn and grow with their classmates. Students are challenged outside the traditional classroom and benefit from hands-on learning as they explore the serene forests and rocky shoreline of beautiful YMCA Camp Elphinstone.

Programming is customized for each group and designed to fulfill BC Ministry of Education prescribed learning outcomes. Participants benefit from:

• Structured activities like our discovery hike or marine beach study that teach about marine wildlife or the ecosystem.
• Programming that focuses on skill development such as archery, orienteering or outdoor living skills.
• Activities like our high or low ropes courses that encourage leadership and team building.
• Water-based programming such as kayaking, canoeing and swimming.
• Games and sports with an emphasis on physical activitiy, strategy and teamwork.
• Interactive leadership sessions that focus on conflict resolution, group dynamics, public speaking and more.

It took thousands of years for the sea stacks and tidepools of Brady's Beach to form, creating a unique topography allowing for some incredible exploration! We will visit your classroom live from the beach and dive into the distinctive habitat found within tidepools.

Written to support distance learning but also useful for physically distanced teaching, a Tech-Up Learning Kit contains resources for both synchronous and/or asynchronous lessons. The teacher guide walks you through leading student activities over a series of sessions of approximately 30-45 minutes. Student activities are handouts for students to work through on their own as assigned, according to your own timeline and discretion.

In these activities, learners in Grades 4-6 will explore how parts of speech can be used to strengthen their understanding of variables.

Students will work towards writing their own Mad Lib Stories before using Scratch to code a Mad Lib story generator.

There is also an optional extension activity if you would like to build further on the coding concepts explored in these lessons.

This kit contains resources for both synchronous and asynchronous lessons.

Tech-Up Learning Specialists are available to support you with these kits.

Find out more and request Variable Stories Learning Kit

What exactly is plankton? We will collect a sample right from outside our front step and show you another world! These tiny creatures are found in all waters and have very cool life histories.

This one is a great follow up to the Oceanography trip!

We will leave the dock in our skiff and study the ocean! Students will learn about the factors that influence water density (temperature and salinity), as well as basics of physical and biological oceanography.

Explore at Home!

https://bardonthebeach.org/education/explore-at-home/

Although we can’t gather right now to experience Shakespeare through performance, there are other ways to discover the vast and varied worlds of Shakespeare! We’ve created these free resources to help you and your students playfully explore Shakespeare’s language, characters, imagery, and plays. Each resource includes a series of asynchronous activities that can be adapted to fit your class's needs.

Explore at Home is hosted on Google Classroom, and can be accessed with a free Google account. Please see our website for instructions on accessing the Classroom. New content is added regularly, so check back often!

Explore at Home is also a great resource for preparing or following up one of our FREE Bard in the (Virtual) Classroom sessions.

Happy exploring!

https://bardonthebeach.org/education/explore-at-home/

Soil is much more than rocks and old leaves - it's a vibrant ecosystem. Since people walk on top of the soil, we often don't consider what's underneath. Your students will explore how soil is made, the layers of the soil, and the animals, plants, and fungi that both rely on and help create a healthy ecosystem.