Moving to Day Camp

[Flower]

Has anyone made the transition from resident camp to day camp? What did you think? Was there anything that surprised you?

I've been pretty well away from camp the last two years teaching at a year round school. This year I'm teaching at a nine month school, so I get the summer off to do camp! I'm trying to decide what that will mean. I considered going back to resident camp, but I haven't come up with any good options for the two cats I've been claimed by in these couple years away. Day camp seems like a good possibility, but I'm worried about it not really being at all like camp.

Is there anyone who has made this transition?
(Or who has any really good ideas of what to do with cats. ;) )

[Smudge]

I spent a summer working on the day camp program of a res camp. For me it was like being at a res camp because the kids were expected to do all the same things as the res campers - archery, boating, swimming, cook out etc. The only things they didn't do were the overnight camp out and the closing chapel service. From what I have heard my day camp experience was a little different for 2 reasons - 1 - usually the counsellors rotated between the 2 camps and lived on site, and 2 - the campers arrived at 7.30am and left at 8pm and had all three meals on camp, provided by the camp. At that camp the director brought his cats to camp with him.

Do you have family or friends who would take them over the summer? This summer my director had cats and she left them at home with the other person who house shared with her and her sis (who was also at camp).

[Flukie]

This will be the second time that I've made the switch from resident to day. I spent my first summer as a UC at resident, then went to UC at day camp for a year, back to resident for three more summers and am back to day this summer.

It definitely isn't the same as res camp, but it does share a lot of similarity. For me, the hardest part is not sleeping there and, as a result, not spending as much time with your kids. However, I work for a GS Council, so we do many of the same activities at res camp and day camp. Our girls will still have cookouts, still have chances to do archery, low ropes, and even overnights, still go on trips, etc. That definitely helps the transition as well.

I like day camp, I love res camp. But I had to make the switch this summer for several reasons, including future advancement in position. So I'm going in with an open mind and the knowledge that last time I did this, it was fun - it wasn't res camp, but it was still fun! :)

[audur]

I worked at a day camp last summer, after three summers at resident camp. My experience was probably a bit different though, because my resident camp was a GS camp in the US, and the day camp was a camp for kids with mental disabilities here at home in Iceland.

The day camp is run by the afterschool program I've been working for the last three winters, so we already knew all of the kids, and the staff was mostly winter staff. We ran ten week-long sessions, but most of the kids were signed up for at least half the summer.

Obviously it was a lot different - I went from working at a camp with a ratio of 1-6 to 1-1 (or occasionally 1-2). And because our kids vary in abilities, it's often hard to do group activities - a lot of time was spent working with just one or two kids on something. Which is fine, just different.

What I really missed was the sense of community you get at resident camp. But, I imagine that at most day camps, you'd still get some sense of community - our community was just different, because many of the kids don't have good social skills. Other than that, I enjoyed it a lot - the staff was great (although maybe not quite as crazy as the staff at my old camp), the kids were awesome, and we went swimming and boating, did arts and crafts, sang songs, played games and went on hikes just like at any other camp. And it was REALLY nice to have evenings and weekends free to do whatever I felt like!