Summer Day Camp
Greetings to all of the wonderful Sense of Wonder Day Camp Parents, Campers and Friends, new and old. We miss you all so much and we hope that you are all happy and healthy.
The 2026 summer camp will be 5 weeks again, from July 6th to August 7th.
COUNSELORS & JUNIOR COUNSELORS:
Counselor Online Application
Counselor Print Application PDF
LEADERS IN TRAINING:
Leader In Training Online Application
Leader In Training Print Application PDF
The Sense of Wonder Summer Day Camp
2026 Schedule:
July 6-10
July 13-17
July 20-24
July 27-July 31
Aug 3-7
Our Camp Staff 2026:
Pam Benjamin:
Director & Instructor
Artist, art teacher, dancer, sailor, mother, environmentalist, humanitarian, mentor
Five Adult Instructors: TBA
Leaders in Training: TBA
Summer Camp 2026 Information:
- Sign up for one or more weekly sessions.
- July 6th to August 7th.
- Ages 7–12.
- Monday–Friday; 9–1 pm.
- $330 per week.
- 50% deposit required once we have confirmed your enrollment.
- Cancellations should be made at least one week before your child’s first day of camp. After the one week date a refund will be made only if the space can be filled by another camper.
Financial Aid and Scholarships are available.
The Sense of Wonder Day Camp Schedule 2026
Our 36th Year
Explanation: Dear Parents and Friends, We will be drawing, painting, making sculptures and mixed media and whatever other art medium interests the campers each week in addition to all the weekly themes and projects mentioned in this Program Schedule. If a camper requests something special, we are always willing to consider it and make it possible. Please let us hear about what your children love to create.
Week 1: July 6: The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers, Stone Sculpture, Ceramics, Regenerative Farming, Island Grown Initiative, Gentle Farm Animals:
Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers is a puppetry troupe based in Bar Harbor, Maine. We are so excited that brothers Erik and Brian Torbeck will join us again this year by popular demand. Founded in 2000, Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers has performed at festivals, schools, libraries and theaters in the United States and Canada. They write and create all the shows they perform and have received three Citations of Excellence from UNIMA-USA, the highest national award in puppetry. An Excerpt from a local Maine newspaper quotes:
“When we put together our first show, we had no idea that we’d ever do the show again, let alone still be performing the same show 20 years later,” Robin said. “After about 10 years of touring, we finally bought a cart to wheel in our gear that also converts to a stepladder. I think it was the best $80 we ever spent! ”Brian, who has become the main puppet builder, has learned a lot about puppet construction — from what materials hold up better to wear and tear, to how to make moving eyebrows and other mechanisms. Erik, who deals with all the sound equipment, has a lot of knowledge now compared to the first show when they rented handheld microphones”.
Mattie Lawler, the highly skilled stone sculptor, will join us this week to work with the children and show them the basic steps for carving their very own sculpture out of Alabaster.
Island Grown Initiative: Some members of IGI will come and do a garden and plant workshop with the campers. Kaila Binney, the wonderful Permaculture specialist and Woods School head teacher, will join us and bring her Gentle Animals from the Allen Farm to visit the campers this week.
The children will get to draw, make puppets, props and scenery for their Puppet shows, stone sculpture, ceramics (hand and wheel), plant seeds and use other art mediums that we have in our studio.
Dear Parents, Relatives, Friends and Community. Please join us on Friday at noon, The campers will have an art show and perform their amazing original creative puppet shows. Brian and Erik will do one of their special unique performances and a demonstration of puppet movement with their own hand made puppets. A Vineyard Farmer will bring in samples of their locally grown produce, herbs, and other handmade products to share with the campers and parents.
Week 2: July 13: Our Deep Connection to Nature and Animals, Papier Mache’ Creatures, Wire Sculpture, Theater, Caribbean Movement, Dance and Culture:
The campers will have the opportunity to make papier mache’ or plaster gauze animals. We will also be drawing, painting and making sculptures out of clay, Sculpey, Wire, Glue and many other materials. The children will be able to collect objects from nature and put them together in a mixed media collage. We will begin working on our annual large Papier Mache’ endangered animal sculpture with Steve Lohman the world famous Wire Sculptor http://www.lineartgallery.com Steve Lohman’s sculptures possess a sense of whimsical showmanship. Each piece like an elegant act of performance art: animated antics frozen in time. Lohman makes each of his sculptures from a single line of either thin wire or thicker steel, and this continuous line heightens both the sense of motion and the humor of his work. “Using a single line,” he says, “makes for playful art, whether you’re drawing or sculpting.” Lohman’s commissions include work created for public, private and corporate including Spalding International, Louis Vuitton Asia, Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Abbott Vascular Europe, The Boston Children’s Hospital, The Boston Symphony Celebrity Series, The City of Marathon Tx, The Rubinstein’s Hotel New Orleans and Stanford University. Lohman lives in New Orleans and Martha’s Vineyard and is the Artistic Director of Orpheus Wines in Sonoma, California. Steve will also lead a wire sculpture workshop. Omari Contaste’, The award-winning dancer and choreographer will be back again by popular demand from the “Forces of Nature” Dance Troupe. Omari will join us this week to show us some fun body movements from Nature and Caribbean dance and culture. He is also a wonderful theater director and playwright. The campers get to write a play with the counselors related to our weekly theme. Omari is a force of nature himself. Everything is by choice.
Dear Parents Relatives, Friends and Community, The campers will have a beautiful Art Show and Nature and Animal installation, a Play, Performances, movement demonstrations. Also Omari Contaste will perform one of his unique choreographed pieces. Please join us at noon on Friday
Week 3, July 20: Mask Making Workshop, Asian Arts, Culture, Crafts, Food, and Music Workshops:
Week 3, July 20: Mask Making Workshop, Asian Arts, Culture, Crafts, Food, and Music Workshops:
Eric Bornstein, the outstanding Master Mask Maker, has studied with masters Agung Suardana in Bali, and Donato Sartori in Italy. He received his MLA in Fine Arts along with the Thomas Small prize from Harvard University. His masks have appeared most recently in the 31st Cambridge River Festival, Contemporary Theater of Boston’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Performance Lab’s Le Cabaret Grimm, Underground Railway Theater’s Life of Galileo, and the Harvard Yiddish Players’ Shulamis. Over the last 30 years Eric’s masked characters have appeared in a variety of venues. They were a highlight of Boston’s First Night celebration for 15 years. His masks have also appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Kennedy Library/Museum, the Boston Lyric Opera, the Boston Ballet, the Society of Arts & Crafts (Newbury Street), The Peabody/Essex Museum, King Richard’s Faire, and Revels. He currently teaches classes in making and performing masks, and offers performances and residencies to schools throughout the state through Young Audiences of Massachusetts. https://www.behindthemask.org/content.html#about_us
Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant – Biography
Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant (also known as Thi Thanh Nga) was born in Saigon and began traveling between Vietnam and the United States at the age of five. Growing up between two cultures during wartime profoundly shaped her life’s work. Her journey—child of war, actress, educator, filmmaker, writer, singer-songwriter, sailor, photographer, grandmother, and cultural historian—has become a rare and enduring global perspective. Tiana married the Oscar-winning writer Stirling SilliphantIn 1972, Tiana became the first Vietnamese-American woman to join the Screen Actors Guild. In 1988, Tiana made a pivotal decision to leave Hollywood and return to Vietnam. There, she began documenting the lives of people rebuilding after decades of war. This marked the beginning of her career as a filmmaker-historian. In 1993, she co-founded the Indochina Film Arts Foundation with Oliver Stone, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to producing films that foster peace, understanding, and reconciliation. Tiana’s award-winning Vietnam Trilogy has been screened across the United States, Asia, and Eastern Europe and is frequently used in educational and cultural settings. She has taught Film at Dartmouth College and lectured at Harvard University, New York University, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, and the Asia Society, engaging students in dialogue about history, ethics, identity, and storytelling.
.Tiana’s current work focuses on preserving and sharing a 30-year archive documenting the long-term consequences of war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—materials she owns and believes are essential for students today. Peace is essential. Her latest film, Dear Vietnam, recently previewed at New York City’s New Plaza Cinema Today, Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant’s mission is educational at its core: to use film, storytelling, and lived experience to help younger generations understand history—not as abstraction, but as human memory with lasting consequences. A list of awards and reviews is available at Tianaworld.com
Daniel Z Greene Biography:
School Guidance Counselor, Educator, Musician, Music Teacher, Yoga Instructor. Student of life. Bay Ridge Preparatory School • Fordham University – Graduate School of Education Staten Island, New York, United States School Psychologist & Educator, Musician
Bay Ridge Preparatory School •
Full-time Sep 1998 – Present • 27 yrs 6 mos
Brooklyn, NY •
⁃ New York State Permanent, Certification, Collaborate with team of educators to improve academic engagement and achievement in diverse high school learners.
Identify and remedy barriers to learning; promote positive behavior and socially successful students. SPECIAL EDUCATION
– New York State Certification in Special Education.- Taught 9th grade students with learning disabilities in a modified English Literature class
Music Director: Conducts High School Jazz Ensemble which performs
Annual shows: NYC Marathon, Winter Festival, Jazz/Blues concert. Designs and instructs music curriculum. . Dear Parents Relatives, Friends and Community, We will have a beautiful Art Show, Mask demonstration and skits written by the children, (by choice) Music Performances with Daniel, Eric will talk about the maskmaking process and Tiana will talk about her incredible Vietnamese Life experiences and films. Please join us at noon on Friday.
Week 4, July 27: Art, Sculpture, Printmaking, Collage, Masks, Stop Motion Animation, Creative Robotics:
Bobby Brown: the brilliant creative artist and his wife Joan Green the innovative Artist, Choreographer and Dancer will join us this week.
Bobby Brown: I have always enjoyed working with my hands. The need to make art must have come from two creative people in my life, my parents. My inspiration comes from a variety of experiences – watching my mother create dolls — but also from my observations of young children, my students during the many years I have spent as an early childhood educator. I am also inspired by the amazing array of discarded materials that I see on the streets and at Extras for Creative Learning (ExCLRecycles, also known as the Recycle Center), where I was workshop director for many years. I embrace the challenge of using all this eclectic stuff along with art materials and pieces of nature to create something new. Joan Green: I am a visual artist whose main career has been as a dancer and choreographer.
I am currently using several media: oil on paper and canvas and mixed media. My current series is called Tender Curves and centers, done by collaging gelliplate prints that involve industrial textures and impressions from nature. My work combines abstraction with figuration, real life with fantasy. My palette is greatly influenced by the time I spend in Jamaica. As a dancer, rhythm and movement are central to my work. I also create paintings and collages especially for children.
Daniel Braunstein: Mechanical Engineering Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Braunstein found his context, and his opportunity to apply MIT’s motto of “mens et manus” (“mind and hand”), when he took the leadership of the Pappalardo Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories. The Pappalardo Lab is used by students in some of the largest, most important classes in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department, including 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing 1) and 2.009 (Product Engineering Processes). Exuberantly praised by many in MechE, the Pappalardo Lab is described as “one of the greatest facilities that has ever existed on the MIT campus” by Steven Leeb, professor of electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Andrea “Onge” Newland and Jake O’Brien the awesome Creative Artists, Educators and Tree, Forest and Nature specialists will join us this week to lead the Stop Motion Animation Workshops.
Dear Parents, Relatives, Friends and Community, On Friday at noon the campers will have an amazing Art Show, A screening of all the Stop Motion Animation films and a demonstration of some of the engineering projects. Bobby, Joan and Daniel will talk about their creative process. We hope that you will join us and bring all your relatives, friends and the community for our end of week party.
Week 5: August 3: Dinosaur bones, Fossils and Artifacts, Drumming, Art Projects from Diverse Cultures, Music and Singer Songwriters, East African Dancing:
The remarkable prehistorian paleontologist Duncan Caldwell will join us and bring his stunning collection of dinosaur bones, artifacts and sculptures from around the world. Duncan is a prehistorian, independent researcher, and author known for his work on Paleolithic art and human evolution. Specialization: Duncan’s research focuses on prehistoric archeology, specifically Paleolithic rock art, human evolution, and ancient tool technology [.Research Contributions: Caldwell has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Antiquity, American Antiquity, and the Journal of Archaeological Science. He is noted for identifying one of the world’s oldest intentional optical illusions in Paleolithic animal sculpture. Godfrey Muwulya, the outstanding drummer, choreographer, dancer, musician, actor and singer, Master Teacher and performing Artist, began training as a dancer and musician and drummer in his native country of Uganda at the age of 5. He has been featured in the New York Times and on Martha’s Vineyard through the Yard. He has collaborated with the NYU January study abroad program, and has performed at NYU at the Loewe Theater, Skirball Center, and Radio City Music Hall. He has taught in numerous K-12 schools in NYC in collaboration with NYU Dance Education alumni and also Elementary Schools around Massachusetts and Martha’s Vineyard.
We are very blessed to have Brenda Cline with us this week. She is a multitalented singer, songwriter, pianist, drummer, educator, artist and more. She taught Art and music for many years in the Tortola, BWI public schools and is a very accomplished artist, singer, musician. She is a bolt of light and joy! Reinforcing interactive, and variety filled songs for all ages, and times.
Love is really the secret ingredient, along with a passion of spreading it in song, and in her daily life. When working on Love Note projects, her music, teaching and recording experience, can be felt and seen. Around the world venues, will never change that homegrown power. ” Let’s Sing !”
Theresa Thomason:
Theresa Thomason has toured for over thirteen years in the most hallowed theaters of Europe and performed at the Vatican in 2005. Her career has spanned over two decades of performances and recordings with the Grammy Award-winning Paul Winter Consort, Pete Seeger, Noel Paul Stokey, Dream Theater, renowned conductor John Rutter, actor and activist Ruby Dee, jazz group FRENS, and many others. Thomason continues to expand her range, style, and creativity and has her own acclaimed musical production called “The Sisterhood”.
Theresa has performed in “Hot Feet”, the Broadway musical conceived, choreographed, and directed by Maurice Hines, featuring music from Earth, Wind & Fire.
Paul Smith is a very skilled pianist, singer, conductor, songwriter and teaches, directs and conducts a chorus in Florida.
The campers will also get to create art projects from diverse cultures including painting, ceramics and the potter’s wheel and use other art mediums.
Dear Parents, Relatives, Friends and Community, On Friday at noon we will have a beautiful Art Show, performances by all the campers and our Visiting Artists, educational speakers, the Unveiling of our Large Papier Mache’ Endangered Animal and our last week of Camp party. We hope that you will join us and bring all your relatives, friends and the community for our end of summer gathering and Celebration of our 36th summer.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Sense of Wonder Creations Live 2010 CD
Our Sense of Wonder Creations Live 2010 CD is available now at the CD Baby music website. Amazing socially and environmentally conscious songs written and sung by our summer campers and counselors. All the income will be donated to humanitarian and environmental organizations.
Download individual songs or buy the CD Sense of Wonder Creations Live 2010
Summer Camp Photo Gallery!
All photos by Lynn Christoffers
The Power of One
One song can spark a moment
One flower can wake the dream
One tree can start a forest
One bird can herald spring
One smile begins a friendship
One handclasp lifts a soul
One star can guide a ship at sea
One word can frame the goal
One vote can change a nation
One sunbeam lights a room
One candle wipes out darkness
One laugh will conquer gloom
One step must start each journey
One word must start each prayer
One hope will raise our spirits
One touch can show you care
One voice can speak with wisdom
One heart can know what’s true
One life can make the difference
You see, it’s up to you!!
Ashish Ram
(Author Unknown)
I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
and because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do something I can do.
We don’t need more money,
we don’t need greater success or fame,
We don’t need the perfect body or even the perfect mate.
Right now, at this very moment, we have a mind,
which is all the basic equipment we need to help the world
Be a better place.