If yesterday the reader was left with the impression that some of our travelers couldn’t sleep due to the excitement surrounding camp starting today, rest assured that we will sleep well tonight. Complete exhaustion has that effect.
The day started with a camp circle where the Americans and Bahamians each said their pledge of allegiance followed by announcements: a very normal summer camp experience. The children were split into two groups and half decorated their tie dye tee shirts while the other half decorated boxes we had brought for all their crafts, projects, etc. from the week. Then, the two groups swapped places. That’s when the rain started. We were doing all the projects outside, so they had to be moved inside (or at least onto a covered patio to finish up the tie dye, then inside). This required a quick pivot in terms of activities, to avoid the chaos that comes from leaving that many children with nothing to do.
Once the rain had subsided it was nearly time to get the kids outside for lunch, with just enough time for the tables outside to dry. We learned along the way that there were “girl plates” (regular round plates) and “boy plates” (square trays), but that colors didn’t matter as much as we had thought they might. Lunch was well received and gratitude given to Max and the kitchen crew. Lunch felt slightly chaotic, but we were informed that the kids must really love what they were doing because they were on their best behavior.
After lunch the kids broke out into four groups that were initially set to cycle between art, STEM, social-emotional learning, PE, life skills and music. Some of the children at the home have varying levels of autism and other conditions that made self control more difficult, sections had kids of mixed ages, and this made some sessions more difficult than others. Due to a combination of rain and group sizes outdoor PE and life skills ended up being dropped for the day.
Art was planned as a paint by number project. The project itself ended up being too difficult for some of the kids, and many ended up pivoting to scratch art and free drawing. This pointed to a need to potentially group the children differently, and plan some experiences for those with differing ability or maturity levels.
In the socal-emotional learning station the children were taught and encouraged to understand their feelings, know how to label them, understand experiences of when they felt them, and know how and when to express them to others. This can be difficult for some children based on ability or the path their lives have taken to that point, and was considered an important and helpful activity. The activities in this station included a chart with feelings and facial expressions associated with those feelings, a dance along daily affirmation song and other related activities.
The STEM station was very popular. Today the kids learned about electricity and building electronic circuits. This station also tries to diversify the learning to match the shorter attention spans of some of the children, so additional learning activities were included.
Music ended up being largely successful, though we gained a newfound respect for elementary music teachers. Each student received a recorder (theirs to keep) and learned to play a simple song. Keeping the students’ focus was sometimes challenging, but many were playing a simple song in the first session. A few students had experience with another instrument or with recorder, but many had no prior experience with this kind of music. Next, the class took turns learning to play their first few chords on ukulele. FONA supporters donated three ukuleles to leave with GBCH so the children can keep working with them after we leave. Tomorrow the recorder section of the class will focus on their learning to play the song together.
We rounded out the day with a meeting in the evening to go over what worked, suggestions for changes for tomorrow, and questions for the staff of the home. While of course the day did not go perfectly, all agree that it was very fulfilling for both the children and the volunteers. Looking forward to a successful day two!
