For quite some time now, we’ve talked about summer camp providing children valuable lessons, unique opportunities to learn that can’t be recreated in traditional educational contexts. If you mention this claim to just about anyone associated with a summer camp, you’ll find full agreement. Summer camps are “Youth Development” organizations. Camps are heaps of fun, […]
Down at the Rockbrook Stables, there’s lots of action these days, even now after camp. That’s because Brevard’s Free Rein Therapeutic Riding Program has begun operating its equestrian programs there. Free Rein is a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging human-horse connections for educational and therapeutic benefits. Children, teenagers and adults with a wide range of […]
Have you run into this yet? Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (2009) is a best-selling book that has been well-covered in the news, and has inspired quite a following among youth development professionals. The book examines a number of popular strategies for raising children— techniques most parents see […]
The issue of summer learning and “student achievement” has popped back up in the news. Yesterday, President Obama gave an interview and said he favored lengthening the school year (and of course, shortening the summer break from school). He suggested American kids were falling behind because other developed countries go to school more of the […]
When we picked her up, she was glowing. She felt so good about herself— confident, happy, strong. The most valuable thing for us is the entire experience… it is amazingly satisfying to see our daughter so bolstered and content.
Back in 2007 Josh Wolk, a writer for the magazine Entertainment Weekly, published a book about life at summer camp entitled, Cabin Pressure: One Man’s Desperate Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor. To write the book, Wolk decided to go back to the same summer camp he attended as kid and be […]
With fall weather sneaking up on us around here, it’s just about time to begin decorating for the season. Bring out the colorful leaf patterns, the pumpkins, the scarecrows, the apples. It got us thinking, and when we ran into this excellent web site for coloring projects, Twisty Noodle, we thought we’d pass it along. […]
What do you do when you need a camp dance idea, something to mix things up a bit and get the girls excited? This past summer, one of our favorite dance nights was when we all flashed back to the 1980s. Through music, costumes, dance steps, even pop phrases, we went back in time and […]
We just learned about an organization dedicated to helping provide summer learning opportunities to children who otherwise don’t have access to summer programs. It’s called the National Summer Learning Association. It aims to provide “tools, resources, and expertise to improve program quality, generate support, and increase youth access and participation,” and to offer “professional development, […]
There’s been another push recently, here in North Carolina and other places, to lengthen the school year by shortening the time students have off in the summer. Taking a look back at the history of schools in America, it’s interesting to see that this has been a long trend. During the pioneer days of this […]
Let’s say you love horseback riding, and you spent just about everyday at the Rockbrook Stables when you were at camp this summer. Certifiably “horse crazy” —that’s you! OK, but now that you’re back at home and not riding as much (if at all), what can you do to keep up with what you learned […]
The girls in our photography class this summer had fun making short stop motion videos. They would build something out of play-doh and take a series of photographs slightly moving each object in their scene. Stringing these still photographs together creates the illusion of motion. Add a little background music and you have a pretty […]
For quite a while, we’ve been writing on this blog about the benefits of summer camp for children. For more than 100 years now in the United States, sleepaway camps have been organized and generations of children have grown stronger, more confident, become leaders, forged close friendships, and acquired all kinds of physical, personal and […]
We wanted to pass along just a sample of the feedback we have been receiving through the end-of-camp survey recently sent out to parents. So many wonderful comments, happy campers and thrilled parents, it’s enough to make all of us at camp blush! But also, it means a lot to know that the deep feelings […]
Camp provides a huge range of opportunities for girls, chances to try new sports, acquire new skills, discover untapped talents, and of course meet and live with new people. There are wide stripes of fun woven throughout all of this, but the most significant things campers talk about is the amazing friendships they build while […]
