Counselor Ben tells everyone at Camp Adventure a story about a strange buzzing sound. Plus a sing-along, some jokes, learning Spanish, and bug jars!
Counselor Ben tells everyone at Camp Adventure a story about a strange buzzing sound. Plus a sing-along, some jokes, learning Spanish, and bug jars!
We’d love to feature you and your fellow campers on our next episode. Share your camp space and your new camp flag for Camp Adventure on social media using #AKBAsummer or write to us at listen@akidspodcastabout.com.
Camp Adventure: A Kids Summer Camp Podcast
S1 E9 “The Mysterious Buzzing Bug”
[INTRODUCTION]
Ari: Welcome to Camp Adventure! Camp is in your living room. Camp is in your car on the way to the store. Camp is under your blanket fort. Camp is everywhere. And Camp Adventure is for everyone, no matter where in the world you are. And camp counselors Ben and Hannah are ready to welcome you.
It’s week number 9 at camp, and this week we’re going to hear a story about curiosity and investigation and a mysterious buzzing.
I’m camp counselor Ari, and I’m so glad to be here at camp with you every week. It’s a beautiful day at Camp Adventure. So, let’s say hello to our friend and adventuring guide, Counselor Ben to kick things off.
Ben: Ari, thank you so much, and yes—I’m ready for Week 9. And hang on a second… [cicada sound effect] Wait… What is that noise? That strange buzzing…? Hmmm… a mystery. Have you ever heard such a sound outside…? I know that many of you have, and I know that there’s a good story to tell about this mysterious buzzing sound, which I cannot wait to tell you during our Storytime.
However, we have to check out the Mail Bag, too, to see what you campers are sending in.
And before that, we have to do something else. Yes!! We have to do that right now, actually, which means that it is time to welcome our wonderful counselor and camp music leader, Hannah Glavor!!
I think Hannah probably likes mysterious buzzing sounds in the great outdoors. She loves all kinds of sounds – she’s a musician, after all. She makes beautiful sounds, doesn’t she? Adventure sounds, and adventure songs!!
Please welcome with me the great and knowledgeable, the one, the only – the woman who can jump like a grasshopper but NEVER eats grasshoppers – the camper who explores not only with her hands and feet but also explores with her EARS – my good friend, Hannah!!
Is that right, Hannah? Do you explore with your ears?
[CAMP SONG]
Hannah: Thanks Counselor Ben! I love to explore with my ears - sounds make me curious.
I always want to figure out where it is coming from and how it is made. Campers, how about you? Do you ever explore with your ears - Listening closely to ALL of the sounds you are hearing?
OK, if you know how to explore with your ears – please wiggle your ears right now!. Wait - Do you know how to wiggle your ears? I mean, I struggle to wiggle my ears, so if you can’t do it without assistance, just use your hands to give your ears a little wiggle.
Oh, yes. That’s hilarious and we are clearly getting somewhere great.
Actually - lets do some ear exploring right now. Sometimes it helps to focus on a sound if you close your eyes. If you close your eyes right now, what can you hear? Maybe it’s a car, or a person, sprinklers, or a bald eagle [eagle sound]. Did you hear anything you weren’t expecting?
[Sings]
Oh, Have you ever gone exploring and you heard a-something new
Like little critters, playing hopscotch or a baby kangaroo (that’s called a joey)
Oh our ears can give us warning or help us find a cockatoooooo
When we are open to adventure who knows what discoveries will ensue
When I’m out on adventures I want to discover all the new sounds around me - sometimes sounds to keep you safe so you don’t step on a rattle snake [rattle sound] or maybe you can find a new species of bird [bird sound] .
Maybe if you listen closely you’ll hear something you don’t expect when we sing tour favorite camp song together.
Adventure [insert bike bell]
We venture [insert toad]
Together with courage
We learn and grow STRONG
We learn from [insert dolphin]
Each other [insert horse]
So let's discover and uncover
Great adventures bright and new
Hannah: Was that… a dolphin at camp? This is the best camp ever!!!
Maybe one day someone will hear you sing our camp adventure song - someone who is exploring with their ears just like us and they ask “what's that song you were singing” and you can tell them all about camp adventure! They are invited to camp too. Everyone is welcome here.
Well friends, it is about that time. The time we have all been waiting for. The time where we all get to hear from YOU our campers. Its time for mailbag!
[MAIL BAG]
Emma: Hi everyone! I’m Camp Counselor Emma and I’m here with the Mail Bag. It’s where I keep all the mail we receive for our campers. Hold on while I just open things up [ziiiiiiip sound]
Oh wow! Wow! Wow wow wow!
We have mail and photos and a whole lot of goodness from campers Kennon, Mitchell, Ian and their daddy Doug!
Remember a couple weeks ago when Camp Counselor Ben was talking about trying new things? Well, listen to this!
“In our family, we tried several new things. Ian tried a chicken quesadilla. Doug (daddy) tried making bruschetta from ingredients in our garden. And Mitchell tried eating bruschetta for the first time—and loved it! Oh, and Kennon tried a tomato.”
Way to go, adventurous eaters! And wow! Looking at the photo… that bruschetta looks DELICIOUS!
They also sent a photo of a cabin fort built out of marshmallows, graham crackers, and toothpicks! SUPER creative, Ian!
We’d love to know about your camp experiences and so, to ALLLLLL of our Camp Adventure campers and families and friends, send us photos and videos and mail to listen@akidspodcastabout.com or on social media using #AKBAsummer. We’ll share as many things as we can from our Mail Bag each week.
That’s listen@akidspodcastabout.com or on social media using #AKBAsummer.
And that’s it! Have a great day at camp!
[ACTIVITIES]
Duke: Howdy, campers. It’s Camp Counselor Duke. And I have a doozy of a joke for you.
Are you ready?
Do you know what one pterodactyl said to the other?
RRAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
[Comic Rimshot sound]
Duke: Ahhh. Quick question for you:
Do you know what type of hat that you put on your knee?
A kneecap! [laughs]
[Comic Rimshot sound]
Duke: How do yall feel about rocks?
Do you have any favorite types?
Do you like to go look for rocks?
Actually, do you know what? On the count of 3, everybody tell me your favorite kind of rock.
Ah… just kidding. I can’t hear you.
Let me tell you about my favorite kind of rock.
Rock and Roll! [laughs]
[Comic Rimshot sound]
Denise: Hey Campers!
It’s Camp Counselor Denise.
Are you ready to learn more Spanish with me today?
You know there are soooooo many countries that speak Spanish. Like Cuba, Republica Dominicana, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and so many more!
But even though we all speak Spanish, we all speak it a little differently. Even with the simplest words.
One of the best examples of this is with the word “you.” Yes you! You wouldn’t believe how complicated the word you can get in Spanish, and it all depends on who you’re talking to and where you’re from.
For example, since I grew up in Puerto Rico, we have two ways of saying you.
If you were talking to your friends, your siblings, and your fellow campers you would say “tu”
Short and simple—T-U: tu! So if I wanted to ask my friend, “How are you?” I would say “¿Como tu estas?”
But if you wanted to ask the same question to someone who is older than you that you don’t know very well or someone who was in charge, like our wonderful Head Counselor Ben, you wouldn’t say “tu” you would say “usted”.
It’s a little more formal and shows that person that you respect them.
So instead of saying “¿Como tu estas?” we would say “¿Como esta usted?”
Can you hear the difference? ¿Como tu estas? ¿Como esta usted?
“¿Como esta usted, Consejero Ben?” It sounds fancy, doesn’t it?
But I bet there’s a few of our campers out there from different parts of Latin America or other Spanish Speaking countries who would say “Como esta usted” to their siblings and use “vos” instead of “tu” when talking to their friends—I told you it gets complicated!
But that’s kind of my favorite thing about speaking Spanish. It’s those little differences that make Spanish such a fun and beautiful language. And even if you’ve been speaking it your whole life, there’s always something new to learn.
Alright, I think that’s enough learning for today campers. Thank you so much for hanging out with me everyone! Keep practicing and I’ll be back with more fun words soon.
¡Nos vemos pronto!
Ari: All right campers, after this break we’re going to hear a story from Camp Counselor Ben, and I promise, you won’t wanna miss it!
[BREAK]
Ari: Okay, we’re back, and it’s storytime! Are you excited? Me too! I love listening to Ben’s stories each week.
So, let’s get ready for this week’s story! Before we get cozy, let’s do a little movement. Can you spin your arms in big circles like your jump roping? Can you do it while hopping? Wow! All right, now, in just a sec let’s hit pause to get in this week’s perfect listening spot. 3, 2, 1 GO! Where’d you pick? This week I’m listening in the car on the way to my own adventure at the beach (I’m so excited!)—wherever you go, get comfy!
Are you ready, Counselor Ben?
[STORYTIME]
Ben: Thank you so much, Ari, my friend. And thank YOU camper friends for always joining me for storytime. I’m hoping you’re having a good time listening to these stories – I am having a great time telling them, and this week’s story begins with a SOUND …. A strange sound that, I think, many of you campers have been hearing this summer… [Cue cicada sound]
Well, back at my little gray house across West Chestnut St from the Fox River, in Burlington, WI – when I was 8 years old, my sister Christy and I were playing outside in our sandbox when….. [Cue cicada sound]…, we heard something odd. She asked me: “What is that weird sound in the air?”
I had no idea. It was SO loud – the buzzing sound, and it lasted for SO long, but we did not know where it was coming from… So we decided to have a little exploring adventure….
We checked everything low to the ground at first, but it was NOT coming from the shrubs or the flowers growing low to the ground. We looked under the shed, and in the hosta plants and on mom’s flowers, but nothing… We realized that the strange sound was coming from somewhere up higher…
Remember last week, in week 8, where I told the story about climbing trees? Yeah, Christy and I loved to climb trees, and so we climbed up into a big green cedar tree, looking and listening [Cue cicada sound]… and it was louder the higher we climbed. But we still couldn’t find anything at all!
“Let’s climb the oak tree,” I said, which was much bigger. As I gripped onto the branches, the bark felt rough and normal, but then something CRUNCHED under my hand… it creeped me out, and I jerked my hand back.
Do you know what it was….? I looked and saw a small brown thing that almost looked like a hollow bug. Just the outside shell…. SO strange.
Then, I saw more of them around the branches, like little hollow bug statues…. Christy and I were very confused.
So, we pulled a couple of the brownish, clear, empty bug shells off of the tree trunk and took them into the kitchen. “Mom!” we said, “Do you know what this is?”
“Oh my goodness,” she said. “Yes! That’s a cicada!” And she told us how this strange bug lives underground for 17 years in little tunnels until finally it crawls up, into the world, and climbs up on trees to make it’s loud cicada call [cue cicada sound].
She said, “Cicada bugs do not have bones – or a ‘skeleton’ -- inside their body, like we do. The cicada, and all insects, really, have a skeleton on the outside – it’s called an exoskeleton.”
“An exoskeleton?” I asked, looking down at the cicada shell in my hand. “Cool!” But I wondered: Where is the actual bug? This empty shell isn’t what’s making all the buzzing noise….
“The bugs,” she said, will be greenish black and are harder to find, but keep looking!”
And so we did, and now that we knew where to look, we soon found three cicadas! They were shiny – CRAZY looking, like little monster aliens – greenish black bug with HUGE, googly red eyes and long, clear wings filled with veins.
“Quick!” I hollered down to my sister. “Go get a jar!”
She scrambled inside and found an old peanut butter jar.
It was much better to put them in a jar than to try holding them because now we could really watch them and check them out.
Then we added a few leaves for them to hide under, and a few sticks for them to climb up on, and some sand and dirt in the bottom, just to make it feel more natural. By the end of the afternoon, we had created a little bug WORLD inside that jar.
My dad got home from work and saw our creation. “Awesome!” he said. “That looks like a fine home for a cicada. But you know….? I think your bugs are all going to DIE.”
“What?! Die? How come?” we asked.
“You have to put some air holes in the lid,” he said. “Bugs need to breathe air, too, just like us!” So he helped us poke a few holes in the jar, and the cicadas seemed happy about that.
Our exploration adventure was a success! We had discovered the source of the strange buzzing sound in the air. And even better, we now made plans to make more bug jars!
In Wisconsin, we have these bugs called “fireflies” that light up at night. Some kids call them “lightning bugs.” Guess what? If you collect them into a jar, they glow yellow-ish green inside the jar, too, and you can watch them at night….
We made bug jars for caterpillars, and for grasshoppers, and even for centipedes that we found under rocks.
The mystery of the buzzing bug was solved! It was the strange, alien-looking 17-year cicada!
And for you campers who are good at math, think about this math problem with me…. It is 2021 right now, and we are experiencing a HUGE cicada hatch all over the place…. What year was it 17 years ago? Uh huh… the year 2004. Guess what? Scientists say that was the last MAJOR cicada hatch in our land…. And what year was it 17 years before that? Uh huh… the year 1987…. Which was the last MAJOR cicada hatch before that. And in 1987, I was eight years old…. When this story happened.
How would you like to live underground for the first 17 years of your life? That would be strange…. You’d probably have to go to underground school, and underground summer camp!
Honestly, I like being above ground much more. And I really like making bug jars. My kids Wesley and Annabelle have made many bug jars!! And for our weekly challenge this week, I’m going to ask them to help me teach you how to make you own bug jars, too!! Sound good? I think it sounds great, so let me go find Wes and Annabelle, and WE will be right back for the Weekly Challenge….
[WEEKLY CAMP CHALLENGE]
Ben: OK, my camper friends, it’s time for your Weekly Challenge, and this week we are going to make our own bug jars! Remember how the s’mores from last week needed three ingredients—graham crackers, chocolate, and a gooey marshmallow? This week’s challenge requires three ingredients, as well: First, a good clean jar; second, a good bug or collection of bugs; and third, stuff like sticks and leaves and dirt to put inside the jar so the bug can be cozy in its own world.
Here’s what to do….
If your jar has a lid, you have to poke holes in it so the bug can have plenty of air. Otherwise your bugs will die. It’s easier to poke holes in a metal lid than a plastic one, but you can figure it out. If you cannot get good holes poked in the lid, or if your jar has no lid, that is OK – just wrap a piece of saran wrap or a plastic baggie over the top, secure it with a rubber band, and use a pencil to poke air holes through the plastic. Works great!!
Then, make the bug’s cozy world. If you’re going to collect ground bugs, like centipedes or roly polies or the other insects you find under rocks, I’d suggest putting dirt and rocks in the jar. If you’re going to catch caterpillars, put some good green leaves in there. They like chewing on leaves. Here’s the basic rule: Try to make the world inside your jar like the world the bug was living in already… so if you catch it on a certain plant, put a few leaves from that very plant in there.
OH—and here’s a tip—don’t put too much stuff in the jar, or the bug will hide and you won’t be able to check it out very well.
Finally, the best part—get outside and catch some bugs. ANY kinds of bugs…Well, if you live in the desert, maybe don’t catch scorpions! Those are poisonous. And in some places, the spiders can be poisonous, too, so make sure your grownups are cool with what you’re catching. But most bugs will be perfect for this. Even ants!! They are AMAZING to watch.
And then my suggestion is that you keep your bugs for one afternoon, or for one day at the most, and then let them go back into the wild so they can live the rest of their little bug lives in their natural world.
Sound good? It sounds awesome to me.
Oh! And I really want to see pictures of your bug jars, so here’s Counselor Ari one more time to remind you how to do that.
Thank you, my friends! I will see you again next week….
[CLOSING]
Ari: Thanks, Ben! And thank you, campers for joining us at Camp Adventure this week. We’d love to feature you and your fellow campers on our next episode. Share your camp space and all your weekly camp challenge creations on social media using #AKBAsummer or write to us at listen@akidspodcastabout.com.
Camp Adventure is written by Ben Tertin with help from the A Kids Podcast About team. Original music is by Hannah Glavor. Check out Hannah’s albums at https://hannahglavor.bandcamp.com.
The show is edited and produced by me, Ari Mathae, with help from Matthew Winner.
Audio production is by Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory. And this show was brought to you by A Kids Podcast About.
Listen to other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsbookabout.com. While you’re there, be sure to check out Ben’s book, A Kids Book About Adventure.
See you back at Camp Adventure next week.