Hi Everyone,

I need HELP!!!! I am a (fairly) new public school teacher and I need some assistance or ideas for summer camp. I have never facilitated one (<--- a summer camp) before and I have no idea where to start or what to do.

As I am teaching high school students I am assuming I cannot simply play games nor watch movies everyday of the camp . I will also do it for three days with the same group of students everyday.

Any suggestions on how I can get started? What is generally required regarding high school summer camps?

 

Ahhh Thanks - it's a start. I am starting to get the hang of everything on here. Hopefully I find something 

Summer camp is always the most fun,t he kids are much more relaxed and more in to what your trying to do. Usually the classes are only around 8 in size so you develop a much closer relationship to the students. That said thankfully I don't have one over this summer 

I was stressed for my first camp, but dont' worry too much.  It's more laid back than regular school and after planning is aside, it is SUPER FUN to interact with your students this way!  You don't have to always do things sitting at a desk or regular classroom stuff--you can take up the time with really fun activities.  For example, I did my winter camp on cultures within the US--we made quesadillas for the southwest, then we did some country songs for the south--each group of students were assigned a new vocab word that was in the song and had to draw a picture/poster to help teach the other students what the word means, then did a lyric fill, and then I taught them (with help of youtube) how to country line dance.  For the midwest, we watched some of Twister with Korean subtitles, then I stopped it at a certain point and they had to think of and act out how they would like the movie to end.


Think of different activities--one teacher I know did some tie dying with her students and it was a hit.  You can do cooking even if you don't have access to a kitchen--think cool summer snacks they might enjoy--rootbeer coke floats, sandwiches, ants on a log, whatever you fancy!

So you can really expand upon activities that you can't usually do in class.  At first it's hard to think of things but once you get a theme going you're good!  Movies and games are good as long as you can give some value to them.