August is just around the corner and I can’t believe how fast this Summer has flown by. It seems like yesterday it was June and our Summer Fun adventures were just about to begin. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m looking forward to summer plans in December. While we still have a lot of fun ahead (our last two Book Explorer’s, Love Thy Neighbor, Garden to Gourmet, and Out of This World) here’s what we’ve been having fun with so far.

At our Book Explorers we traveled to Poland, Cambodia, and Puerto Rico! In Poland we learned all about Warsaw the capital of Poland, children had the opportunity to try a Polish dish of open-faced sandwiches with peas and eggs on top, and got to try their hand at creating their own piece of art following the traditional folk art of Polish paper cutting called Wycinanki. It was a lot of fun decorating our paper art Roosters with colorful patterns. On our next adventure, we jetted off to Cambodia where we learned how they celebrate Chinese New Year, met the animals of the zodiac, made our own lanterns, and enjoyed a traditional Cambodian dish of sweet dumplings. Did you know they fill their dumplings with sesame seeds? They do, and it is tasty good! Even after those two adventures we were eager for more and hopped over to Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico abounds with colorful streets and some of those streets even have blue cobblestones. We explored the fortress of San Cristobal, listened to Puerto Rican salsa music and even made our own maracas so we could keep on dancing with an authentic twist. Then we enjoyed fried plantains with cinnamon sugar. It was de-lic-ious! We can’t wait to head to England and Nigeria for two more exciting adventures. Come join us for our last two adventures

Travel and new foods are awesome but so is art! With my friends at Love Thy Neighbor, we’ve been spreading our creative and culinary wings. We kicked off our Summer with the science and art of Rock Candy. There were so many flavors and watching the Rock Candy grow up our stick like a stalagmite was super cool! Then we made art using beads and pipe cleaners and submerged it into a hyper-solution of borax so crystals would grow all over our art. We also made keychains to hang on our backpacks in the fall. We’re really looking forward to what’s next. Come join us for watercolors, volcanoes and more!

Who could forget about our time spent as junior members of the CDC. It might sound like a lot of pressure, but it was nonstop fun. We made quarantine boxes so we could work with contagious viruses. Then we built a model of a cell and a model of a virus to have a visual representation of how a virus attacks a cell. We explored how viruses mutate and how scientists protect cells with antivirals and vaccines. It was a week full of science and engineering and we had the best time!

Even though the end of July is upon us, there’s still a lot of fun to be had! We have two more Book Explorer’s at the Pamlico County Library, reading stories, tasting food, and making art from different countries. Or youth can blast off the planet with “Out of this World,” learning about planets, stars, and aeronautical engineering. Children will engage in challenges to get their astronaut and all the mission supplies safely off the planet. They can also dig themselves into Pamlico County with “Garden to Gourmet,” growing tasty treats we’ll prepare for ourselves. Nothing quite tastes as good as a vegetable you’ve grown yourself. All of these programs will get kids up, active, and engaging their curiosity, building on educational and motor skills masteries of the previous year. Register soon to guarantee more summer fun!

For more information on the Love Thy Neighbor summer nutrition program or any of our summer programs, contact Kait Neeland at (252) 745-4121, or kait_neeland@ncsu.edu, or check us out online.