Delayed post: Junior High Camp

 Oh my.. this summer is flying by faster than I ever thought it would! We have already come to the last few weeks of camp and if my face in this post is any indicator of the time I am having.... mischief abound!

Two weeks ago was was Junior High Camp and it came and went with its share of challenges and victories. My own victories being some pretty cool crafts, program organization, and of course getting to see some of my campers from last year. A lot of them graduated this year and will be freshmen in the fall - such a proud craft queen was I :)

Cézanne helping plan activities

 I planned a LOT of activities for this group. They have to be given access to multiple media and explorations to stay out of trouble. I made sure to provide as many choices as I could, such as:
--string art
--concrete planters
--concrete stepping stones
--drawing
--button making
--bead animals
--Gods eyes
--Gimping
---many many many things!

the boys just wanted to color with crayons CONSTANTLY

step one for string art: draw/plan your designs!

making buttons about camp and its greatness - priceless

UM YES. STAR WARS BUTTONS.

Fully stocked cubbies :)

Junior high deans took full advantage of the new programs: fishing and archery! Unfortunately, with the timing of my craft periods I had to lend out my fishing gear and let the kids run rampant with it. Har har, just kidding! We had the lifeguards watching them to make sure no one fell in - unless they wanted to. Archery, however, was another story! I was able to carve out an hour a day to teach archery to the campers and 3 of the 5 days I had a full 'class'! Some of the counselors even came down to shoot a few rounds. I was excited to be able to provide the kids with 2 more arrows than they used to be able to shoot - thanks to the camp director being so supportive :)

prepping..

nock arrows!

draw... 

This group was SUPER competitive! Not just during games but also during archery! A few of the kids made 'bets' about who could hit the bullseye, who could get closest to certain parts of the target etc.. they made up their own scoring methods and did a LOT of trash talking. Too funny! Some of the girls were walking around calling themselves Katniss. That's the kind of motivation that makes master archers!

One of the projects I was most excited about was anything - and I mean ANYTHING - involving the big old bags of Quickrete we purchased near the beginning of camp. I found some cool projects involving plants (of course) and making molds for planters/pots. I spent the better half of a day creating cardboard molds for triangular planters (found here.) In typical camp fashion, the craft lady can often get carried away with her projects and overestimate the amount of interest in one particular activity.. so I had one camper work on the triangular planter and the rest of them made some pretty adorable stepping stones and paperweights.

Making concrete for paperweights - making some MUSCLES, TOO

 I found some great old muffin tins in the kitchen basement so I wanted to see what kind of trouble I could get into with those... turns out quite a bit!

This camper was very excited her shoes made it into the photo . Seriously

pouring stepping stones - probably saying something along the lines of GO GO GO

these campers were working on a stepping stone for their church

making decorations for banquet

drying in the sun :)

working on cardboard molds

self portrait?

tiny stepping stones 

A TARDIS!

making bead animals

Gods eyes were really popular !

making triangular planters - pretty cool project!

String art of various shapes and sizes - all kinds of designs!

my campers made me a pair of antlers...business hat

I think overall Junior High was my favorite group of campers. There were some pretty unfortunate maintenance/cleaning issues that came up but other than that the kids were great! They always wanted to work and help out with projects and planning. I had kids helping make buttons and pour concrete and sell gimp.. It was nice! I didn't have to be in 900 different places at once and I could focus in on the kids who needed more help or back off and let them figure things out. I really enjoyed working with this group of campers because of their willingness to learn new things. Junior high are a great age group - learned helplessness isn't as big of a factor and each kid had something to prove. Whether it was figuring out bead animals or planning a string art piece, every day kids were accomplishing multiple projects and making new friends. I had very few discipline problems and as stated earlier it was great to see some of my campers from last year... camp is a big deal for a lot of the kids and consistency is important. They were as excited to see the retuning staff as we were to see them! I wished them all luck for the rest of their summer and school year and by then.. it was time for elementary campers to arrive!

More to come,

Ms. Kanak