Week Seven Wrap Up

This week the Specialty Camp was making a lot of delicious food to eat because once again the week’s theme was Camp Chefs. The campers enjoyed learning how to make new kinds of food and discovered new favorite treats to make. Camper Dawn said “my favorite thing that I cooked this week was pizza because I liked shaping the dough and putting on toppings. We also learned how to make ‘dirt.’ You put in chocolate pudding and crushed Oreo and try to make your dish look like dirt and then you put in gummy worms!” Specialty Campers went all out making the best food they could, and it really came out well!

 

This week has been very busy for Leadership Academy. They have been working on their fundraiser. The campers took time and brainstormed. Now they have finally decided that they are having a Lemonade and bake sale. They also decided on a date for the sale. Next Wednesday, August 10 is the official date of the Lemonade and bake sale! Thursday, Leadership tagged along with Discovery camp and also went to the beach. Leadership tested their responsibility while being there. Counselor Matt said “They acted very responsible at the beach. They didn’t abuse the opportunities they had and they followed instructions.” Leadership was the only group that got to walk the whole entire boardwalk because they acted responsible and used their listening and communication skills that they learned earlier this week.  

 

Thursday, Discovery Campers went to Point Pleasant Beach. There, campers swam in the ocean, made sand castles, and even went to an ice cream shop. The Campers had an awesome time. Although the waves were really big, camper Ved said “I liked running away from the waves!” Some of the campers didn’t swim, instead they made sandcastles. Some even buried one another. At the end of the day, they all stopped for ice cream. Everyone had a really great time. 

This week MVP learned a lot about Y core values. The core values focused on most this week were caring and responsibility. The campers learned that even if the planned game is not their favorite, they may ruin the fun of the other campers if they don’t participate. By playing even if they don’t want to, they learn the value of caring. It’s important to learn to care because there are many times when one will have to do things they don’t feel like doing because it’s for the good of the group. The campers also learned about responsibility. From something as simple as cleaning up after themselves, the campers learn how to be responsible. Every day the kids play not only outside but also inside, with board games and they always make a mess. With the board games, everyone has to help clean up, whether they played or not. If the campers don’t learn to clean up and they leave the games and pieces lying around, the next time they want to play the game, the pieces will be lost. Another example to being responsible is cleaning up after lunch. Learning to clean up isn’t hard because it’s something every kid is taught to do at home. It is important that the campers clean up after lunch because if they don’t, the room in which they eat will become too dirty and maybe too smelly for the kids to eat in it anymore! When they don’t clean up after lunch, every single kid has to pick up five pieces of trash whether it was theirs or not in order to reinforce the idea that they all share the responsibility of cleaning up. The Y uses simple ways to teach our campers big things. Our campers will keep these skills for life.