What a fun day! I was very concerned about meeting the children's expectations and I think I can positively say that I did!
Today was filled with fun and laughter! I invited my readers into the tea party room two by two and presented them with their Mad Hatter hats! The little ladies were over excited about the hats...the little gentlemen...not so much! LOL
We then took some pictures.  When they were all finally seated for tea I asked my campers to remind me about the strange events that took place at the Mad Hatter's tea party and they did not disappoint! "It was always four o'clock!" "They were always having tea."  "They kept on moving around the table...changing chairs!" The last statement was a great way to start our party game, musical chairs! Boys, then girls, then championships! The boys won and the girls were ok with that.
Can you imagine that even though some of the girls were dressed as princesses they still wanted to go outside to play! I love these children. We had some fun with bubbles and then back inside for eats and drinks and onto the movie. Need I say what movie we watched? (The 1951 Disney animated version of course!)
I loved this lively bunch. I hope I see them again soon.
I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted, as I was busy putting their camp books together, but here are a few managed to take.

Today we discussed chapters 4 and 5. Instead of reading these chapters again I held the book up and discussed some of the fun things in the chapter. I explained the game of croquet and how odd it was to play it with flamingos and hedgehogs. We discussed the trial. The children could not remember who was on trial and when I told them it was the Jack of Hearts I could see the vacant looks in their eyes. Then it occurred to me to ask them if they had ever seen a deck of cards? To my surprise most of them said NO so I whipped out my deck of cards (bought for craft time) and showed them the King, the Queen and the Jack! I also asked if they knew the poem " The Queen of hearts made some tarts all on a summer's day! " but they hadn't! I'll add that to my list of things to teach children....:)
For our learning exercise the children built a simple puzzle which only tested if they could put the numbers 1 to 9 in order. The older children answered a few multiple choice questions. At craft time we made the Queen's army!  Take a look!
Ok off now to see about this tea party or the children may just be screaming "Off with her head!" tomorrow. :)

Today my little readers amazed me with how well they understood and remembered the entire story. They walked me through from the beginning to the end naming all the characters and remembering so many details! The two other Aunties assisting kept on say "Wow! Really good!", "I can't believe they remembered all that!"
 I have to admit I questioned myself last night...should I have read the entire story on the first day? This morning the children demonstrated that they are just as awesome as I expected! They LOVE being read to and even when they seem to be distracted they are listening to every word!
After my short quiz I read chapter 3 to the children as this was the chapter in which we met the Cheshire Cat! After the reading the children did learning exercises which varied from colouring the Cheshire Cat to answering some simple multiple choice questions.
During our Crafty Me session we did a craft inspired by Alice's words " ...I've seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat!" So we set out to make a grin without a cat!
Take a look! 
Tomorrow we focus on the Queen of Hearts and the activities in her garden and at the trial.

What a lively bunch of children attending camp this term.
The first question I asked, after introductions, was how many children had ever heard the story Alice in Wonderland. Not many raised their hands but a few indicated that they had seen the movie.
I knew today would be challenging because my audience was young and even the abridged version of this story is quite lengthy. As we read I paused intermittently to ensure my young readers were still engaged. Alice followed a rabbit got smaller, bigger,  incy wincy and was drowning in her tears! Then we met  the caterpillar sitting on a mushroom smoking a pipe. Alice then went into that crazy house with the cat that was smiling and then there was a tea party with the "Mad Man" ....( to quote a few children who could not remember his name ) and finally we met the Queen of Hearts! Thank God it was all just a dream!
The purpose of reading the entire story today was for the children to be able to grasp the concept of the  sequence of events or at the very least the sequence of the characters. I believe this was accomplished as most of my readers were able to tell me the order in which Alice met the characters and most importantly that the story was all about things that happened to Alice!
I made the learning exercise fun by using stickers for the children to sequence the characters.  At craft time we made finger puppets. I had the children match the picture of the character to their names to make very simple oval shaped finger puppets. Here are some of the pictures I managed to capture! Tomorrow we focus on the Cheshire Cat! :)