Letters from Camp VI

[collissimon]

This first appeared in the April Newsletter


Letters from Camp is a series (http://www.talkcamp.com/showthread.php?t=611) of fictional letters from 'Camper', an eleven-year-old writing home to his parents about his first summer at camp. He is in the youngest unit, aged between 10-12 years old.

Hi Dad,

I saw Mom on Sunday I wish you could have been there. They said to say Hi. It’s been all change here, as half the other kids have gone, and the counselors have all shuffled round. It’s very weird not having some of my friends there any more. The new people are a lot younger than me –they still haven’t outgrown Pokemon!

We had Track and Field Day on Wednesday, we were split into three teams –Red, White and Blue. My bunk is in the Red Team. There was a story too: an old man asks his three children to go out and play different games to show him different wonders of the solar system.

Then we went round different activities that had different planet themes. I really liked Neptune, where there were lots of different puzzles and Jupiter where we did some running. I know what you’re thinking, me running!

We did some swimming, and at the end of the day, there was an awards ceremony: I got a medal and Simon handed out the medals to everyone. I was really tired though, and fell asleep in the middle of the story!

Camper


Letters from Camp is based at Summit Camp, Pennsylvania. Summit is a camp for children with emotional, social and behavioural difficulties, such as ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome, or juvenile on-set bi-polar disorder, and has a no-sugar food policy.

[Dave]

Track and Field day sounds like something we do at our camp during color war (minus the planets though). :D

[collissimon]

I think they are pretty similar, they have a different story every year: this year was kind of like King Lear in space, the year before the Ancient Olympics and the year before the Egyptians.

They also make it non-competitive, where the three teams discover how enriched they are by games played together etc. etc.

[ArtisticEric]

Nice work as always... it reminded me of when the parents came to visit and this one boys mom was worried about him being unorganized and the day before we had cleaned and i had organized his 2 cubbies in warm weather an cold weather and type , needless to say she was happy with that.... though she could tell that he hadn't been to fold them so nicely and i had to admit it was me ,because the laundry always folded them wrong an i was taught to fold them like you see it stores...so one day i folded the cubbies realy nice and organized an everyone new it had to be me because my period off was durring the time they inspected bunks so we got a perfect 10 and it became my job the rest of the summer):D

[collissimon]

We have to fold them like they do in shops too, but the kids always seem to keep their cubbies messy, except for one who keeps it incredibly tidy and gets irritated when others mess up his stuff!

It's funny what parents want their child to achieve, and what they expect you to achieve. I had one who's parents wanted him to learn how to do his shoe laces at camp. Needless to say we didn't achieve it, because there wasn't time for him to do his laces up and do everything else. Plus, he was conscious of everyone waiting for him, and he didn't want to feel different from all the others. Have you had anything that parents want their kids to achieve?

[ArtisticEric]

Last year we were given a profile type thing about are kids and it listed what they wanted to learn and what their parents wanted ect ect.. it was helpful because you got a little heads up about the campers so you had a little ideda of what to expect . Some parents wanted them do certain sports ect but if the didn't want i never made them sign up for them , i'd compromise as long the didn't pick things where they sat around all day. The hard part was after the first session we had secretly pass the papers between to my co-counselos and I so the campers didn't know about them an read them in the bathroom where they can't see.... We didn't have any problem with it though no campers saw anyone else paper:) the worst thing is when we would go to read one and half of it was blank because someone fill the rest out

[KiwiCRB]

I sometimes wish it was a requirment for campers to know how to tie their shoes before they come to camp.

[collissimon]

We sometimes get a sheet of campers' goals in their file written by them or their parents and most of the time they're pretty reasonable (make a friend etc.) but sometimes they are just not conceivable in a camp environment.

I'm with you on the shoe lace tying thing Kiwi: the kid in question had some trainers with Velcro, so it wasn't too bad... I didn't force him to do his shoe laces, because we didnt have the time!

[Sparkes]

My girls' cubbies were never bad. It was mine that was the worse. But, it wasn't my fault! My co would raid it for clothes all the time and never fold things. And I hate folding! Ok, so it was half my fault and half hers. But my kids cubbies were always really clean.

Making your bed should be taught ahead of time. Actually, we do a bed making demonstration just for our kids.

[CAMPFRIEND]

Another great letter. How many more do you have?