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Step 14When doesn't camp work?
For most kids (about 80 - 90%), they take to camp like water. They wake up, excited, full of ideas, eager to come, and spent the day doing what they want to.
Even so, it's really useful to start the camp week by talking about what makes the camp environment different from other places they might be used to. There's something really charming about seeing the moment of recognition that kids had during the first couple of years of Camp K when, midway through the week, they'd say something like "so we can build whatever we want?", but really you want them to know this from the get-go.
Some kids need some help getting used to camp. The biggest categories I've seen are kids that are really shy, and kids that are socially awkward in some way.
For kids that are really shy, we usually have a number of counselors not doing activities at any given time, and one of their tasks is to look out for anyone who looks a little bit lonely in a corner, and help find find an activity for them and fold them into the group. We often have an opening activity for kids arriving Monday morning to go, so that if kids want to, they can meet a few kids and counselors in a small group and gradually orient themselves.
There are some particularly good activities to start the week out with. In the first few days of camp you want to introduce kids to each other, to the adults, and to all of the tools that they can freely use.
Some activities are really good for promoting social interaction. I love to start monday morning off with candle-making because it involves a small group of kids (usually mixed-gender!) sitting around in a circle, working on a calm project, and talking for a few hours. They get to know each other and they get to know you. As an added bonus, I found that girls who I met while leading candle-making would frequently follow me to the electronics-room when I led an activity there.
Other activities are great because they introduce kids to tools that they can work with independently for the rest of the week. A counselor-led take-apart activity, and introduction to circuits with LEDs, motors, and breadboards, and an introduction to Scratch are all really powerful. Ideally by wednesday all of the kids are pretty much doing their own stuff and you're just wandering from place to place offering advice, inspiration, and safety.
For kids that are socially awkward (for example, if they have trouble sharing, or if they yell at other children when not included), we've found the best thing is to assign a few counselors to the child and have them work closely with the child. The counselors can check in with the child, and the child can trust that they can go find these certain adults if they're having trouble and talk to them about what's going on. Often the problem is a matter of the child not knowing how to communicate something important to them (how to ask for an object or for inclusion in a game), and we've found that these problems can fester if left to their own devices (a child who's not good at sharing will quickly be faced with the bigger problem of not having any friends and not being able to share!) While some may argue that these natural consequences are best, in a short-term environment like camp, I feel that providing what help we can with children's communication is the best way to go (though it sure can be tough at times!)
Make do with what you have, and remember that all of the counselors are around to help each other! I remember one day at cleanup time when a kid was totally freaking out about the day ending, and not being done with his project, and having to clean. I was working on something else at the time, but I saw another counselor really struggling with this -- the kid was getting angrier and angrier at him and there didn't seem to be anything that was going to break this loop. I happened to have a dead battery in my pocket and happened to need batteries for wahtever I was doing. I went up to the kid and said "Hey, listen, sorry to interrupt -- I need two of these batteries and I think this one's dead -- can you test this battery and find me a few more that aren't dead? The multi-meter should be on the workbench."
And off he went. The problem didn't entirely go away, but it was defused, and the child and I had a conversation while he helped me out.
Sometimes everything works great with the kids, but there are problems between adults. Most of these problems end up coming from some people feeling overworked and other people feeling underrespected. Try to avoid both of these things. After doing Camp Kaleidoscope with 60 kids per week one summer, we started Parts and Crafts and initially had between 2 and 8 kids weekly. Working with 8 kids was effortless! When you scale up to 60 kids, I highly recommend that you do everything that you can to make it resemble 10 groups of 6 more than 1 group of 60.
The most important thing, I think, is for adults to work together closely and talk about their days together, that way, whatever goes right, and whatever goes wrong, everyone is learning, and things will definitely improve!
Even so, it's really useful to start the camp week by talking about what makes the camp environment different from other places they might be used to. There's something really charming about seeing the moment of recognition that kids had during the first couple of years of Camp K when, midway through the week, they'd say something like "so we can build whatever we want?", but really you want them to know this from the get-go.
Some kids need some help getting used to camp. The biggest categories I've seen are kids that are really shy, and kids that are socially awkward in some way.
For kids that are really shy, we usually have a number of counselors not doing activities at any given time, and one of their tasks is to look out for anyone who looks a little bit lonely in a corner, and help find find an activity for them and fold them into the group. We often have an opening activity for kids arriving Monday morning to go, so that if kids want to, they can meet a few kids and counselors in a small group and gradually orient themselves.
There are some particularly good activities to start the week out with. In the first few days of camp you want to introduce kids to each other, to the adults, and to all of the tools that they can freely use.
Some activities are really good for promoting social interaction. I love to start monday morning off with candle-making because it involves a small group of kids (usually mixed-gender!) sitting around in a circle, working on a calm project, and talking for a few hours. They get to know each other and they get to know you. As an added bonus, I found that girls who I met while leading candle-making would frequently follow me to the electronics-room when I led an activity there.
Other activities are great because they introduce kids to tools that they can work with independently for the rest of the week. A counselor-led take-apart activity, and introduction to circuits with LEDs, motors, and breadboards, and an introduction to Scratch are all really powerful. Ideally by wednesday all of the kids are pretty much doing their own stuff and you're just wandering from place to place offering advice, inspiration, and safety.
For kids that are socially awkward (for example, if they have trouble sharing, or if they yell at other children when not included), we've found the best thing is to assign a few counselors to the child and have them work closely with the child. The counselors can check in with the child, and the child can trust that they can go find these certain adults if they're having trouble and talk to them about what's going on. Often the problem is a matter of the child not knowing how to communicate something important to them (how to ask for an object or for inclusion in a game), and we've found that these problems can fester if left to their own devices (a child who's not good at sharing will quickly be faced with the bigger problem of not having any friends and not being able to share!) While some may argue that these natural consequences are best, in a short-term environment like camp, I feel that providing what help we can with children's communication is the best way to go (though it sure can be tough at times!)
Make do with what you have, and remember that all of the counselors are around to help each other! I remember one day at cleanup time when a kid was totally freaking out about the day ending, and not being done with his project, and having to clean. I was working on something else at the time, but I saw another counselor really struggling with this -- the kid was getting angrier and angrier at him and there didn't seem to be anything that was going to break this loop. I happened to have a dead battery in my pocket and happened to need batteries for wahtever I was doing. I went up to the kid and said "Hey, listen, sorry to interrupt -- I need two of these batteries and I think this one's dead -- can you test this battery and find me a few more that aren't dead? The multi-meter should be on the workbench."
And off he went. The problem didn't entirely go away, but it was defused, and the child and I had a conversation while he helped me out.
Sometimes everything works great with the kids, but there are problems between adults. Most of these problems end up coming from some people feeling overworked and other people feeling underrespected. Try to avoid both of these things. After doing Camp Kaleidoscope with 60 kids per week one summer, we started Parts and Crafts and initially had between 2 and 8 kids weekly. Working with 8 kids was effortless! When you scale up to 60 kids, I highly recommend that you do everything that you can to make it resemble 10 groups of 6 more than 1 group of 60.
The most important thing, I think, is for adults to work together closely and talk about their days together, that way, whatever goes right, and whatever goes wrong, everyone is learning, and things will definitely improve!
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