A Different Week

This last week I aided in the 6-8yr old room for Animal Antics Camp. It was a lot of fun. Each day of camp was based around a different type of animal. Monday was Jungle Animal Day, Tuesday was Bird Day-we tie dyed shirts, etc. This camp was programmed by a Camp Adventure person and for the first time we had a complete camp. We began with singing, played some games, had snack, did a craft, and finished the day with closing songs. The kids LOVED it! I had one little boy who I'd had for Arts and Crafts Camp weeks ago. This boy looks like a blond version of Cory Mathews from Boy Meets World, and loves to do crafts. On Thursday of camp while working on Pine-Cone-Pets (something my fellow Camp A person had shown them) this boy says to me, "Miss Rita I like you best because you're the Art teacher!" I almost melted inside it was so cute. It's nice to know that at least some of the things I'm doing are leaving imprints on these kids.
The second half of my day was a bit tougher. I was incharge of the 9-12 Crazy Kids Camp. This camp is a bunch of random ridiculousness and called a camp. I was given the program they used last year and due to parent complaints about not sticking to the program, I was forced to only enhance the program, not take things out. Which meant I had a flour fight, a water balloon fight, and a food fight along with other crazy games all in one week. Did I mention that we had 52 kids signed up for this camp? Before this week we thought 36 was a lot...that was nothing compared to 52 screaming 9-12 year olds. YIKES! I spent more time asking them to please be quiet than actually playing programmed games. One boy came up to me on Tuesday and said "Miss Rita with the counselors always asking us to be quiet I'm not having any fun. Can you please tell everyone that we have to be quiet so we can have more fun?" It made me sad to know that not only was I frustrated, but the kids were too. At the end of the week we promised the winning team that they got to pie the counselor of their choice...needless to say we all got pies to the face. They liked smashing those plates of whipped cream into our faces after being yelled at all week to listen up. Here is a picture of all the counselors and volunteers that got pied.