Reset…and Go!

I’m a little short on words tonight, so this is probably going to be relatively brief…Today was what I am calling our ‘reset and go’ day. After muddling our way through the first week of camp this weekend was an opportunity for us to reset our program and expectations for the rest of camp. Today was the ‘go’ day. One of our major problems last week was low turnout. We had plenty of kids registered for camp, but we had a paltry 50-60% of those kids attend. This week we adopted a policy of letting anyone who showed up for camp join in. We will try to get them registered as the summer goes on. I should clarify what I just said…We are not just accepting any random kid who wanders into our classrooms, we are only accepting kids that are on the waiting list or have had parents approach us about attending. This measure greatly improved the turnout in our morning classes with our 4-6 class almost doubling in size!

The 7-9 group remained at a relatively steady 20 camper level, which to be honest is just as well! I’ve been spending some time working with the 7-9s and they are certainly a handful! I have been taking small groups of them to work on special projects in an attempt to relieve the burden on Jenette, Courtney and Esther, so I have experienced first hand how much of a pain they can be! They’re great though, just a little bit crazy!

Today we played a great game of ‘Up!’. Anyone who was in Mrs. Leal’s grade 5/6 class at John Dearness knows what I’m talking about. It’s a great dodgeball game where you have to sit down when you get hit with the ball. The only way you can get back up again is for one of your teammates to catch the ball in mid-air and yell ‘Up!’ We used to play ‘UP’ everytime we got enough PAT time accumulated. The kids really seemed to like it, and it pretty much saved the day!

I also began working on recording some radio ads with the kids that I have. Hopefully we’re going to produce a quick little radio clip of each kid telling the community what they’re doing in camp, what they like about camp, why they want to learn to read and write and who the people they love are. After a little bit of coaxing the kids got really into the idea…Once they saw the cool recording equipment they were hooked.

This afternoon we played a lively game of ‘Balderdash’ with our 10-11s. We didn’t really have a great turnout with them, about consistent with last week’s numbers, but at least it gave us a break from the morning. Balderdash is a really great game for getting kids into writing and learning new words. Our kids took a while to get the hang of it, but now they are actually asking to play longer! Score! We also played up with the older kids, and they loved it just as much as the younger kids did. Thank you Mrs. Leal and your amazing game of dodgeball!

After dodgeball I actually got through recording 4 radio ads with the oldest kids in the camp. They had written announcements to advertise the start of our upcoming broomball, floor hockey and music nights. I still have to figure out what exactly I’m going to do for my music night! I think I’m going to start with teaching them ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus. Almost every kid (even guys) knows the song here, and to be honest, it’s a pretty decent song, despite it’s Miley-ness.

After camp today I took a spin down to Corny’s to grab some canned fruit (I spent about $11 on three cans) because I just really needed to get some fruit happening in my life! My two housemates seem content to live on minimal fruit, but I have been grabbing a bit extra here and there and no currently find myself the only healthy member of the household! I’m assuming that this is just pure luck, so I’ll probably be sick as a dog pretty soon, but so far so good. As my mom would say, ‘think positive thoughts and you won’t get sick’.

I should also mention that I have about 50 pages left in Catcher in the Rye. This means that I am 50 pages away from actually being able to discuss my band’s name! I’m loving the book by the way. The conversational tone that Salinger uses to bring Holden Cauffield to life is one of the most intriguing things that I have read since Great Gatsby.

Alright, well that’s it for me tonight…Tomorrow is another day…

–Be kind to each other and don’t fall down…