Are you planning on doing a Summer Camp this year?
If so you’re going to love today’s post!
One of the amazing teachers in Italy last year was Mary.
And she is seriously the queen of awesome Summer Camps.
It’s amazing what she’s been doing.
I’ve finally got her to agree to doing an FAQ style blog interview where – hopefully! – she can answer all your top questions about organising really successful camps.
What do you need to know?
I’m taking the questions now, so write in the comments of this post….
Right now, what is the number one thing you’d like to know about organising amazing Summer Camps?
The most popular questions I’ll put to Mary and hopefully we’ll have the blog post up in the next couple of weeks.
Do let us know in the comments!
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. The winner of last month’s blog comment competition was ….. Patricia! This month I’m offering a different prize, you can either choose a Genki English vol. download of your choice. Or …. a 30 minute skype consultation. With me (probably!) Teaching techniques? Phonics? Running your business? You can ask anything you like with a 1 on 1 skype call (we’ll agree on a time.) So get commenting on the blog, the more you comment the more chance you have to be the winner. (And if you ask the right questions I can guarantee that the 30 minutes will get your teaching or business to a whole new level!)
1 on 1 skype call, now that’s sounds interesting 🙂
I usually organize a Spring Camp and this year we will do 3 weeks of summer camps.
We always have a wonderful time.
We work on a theme, last week’s was ” Pop to the Shop ” and we learned about money ( pennies/dimes/nickels/quarters), praticed a lot, with 3 main GE songs: How much, welcome to the fruit market and what’s your favorite flavor. We added 2 camp songs to throw in some energy ( Follow the leader and Cha Cha slide ).
I’d like to know more camp songs ( although GE disco warm up works well too )
I also wonder how to get the kids to talk more in English in between guided games and activities. When I am around and I know they know how to say it in English I say ” You don’t say XXXXXX in ENglish, what do you say?”
Last year we had a chart for good efforts, trying to talk in English, etc.
I’d like to come help out Mary this summer and she could volunteer at my camps too!
Interesting. I have often thought about having a summer camp but have never done it in the end. I suppose my first question would be about the scheduling.
How long is it? I was thinking about doing it in the month of August and focusing each week on different themes. Here in Europe many people go on vacation in August so I thought that way kids can sign up for just one week at a time.
How many hours a day would you recommend? The normal 45min. lesson plan is probably kind of short for a summer camp setting. Ideas on what an all morning or a few hours lesson plan could look like?
Thanks beforehand!
Hi Mary,
I am planning a role play scenario – ordering food at a restaurant- planning to use the genki food- I’d like some… is there anything you can suggest to make this work really well?
Hi,
I do small summer camps, kids love the splodge tank you can use any English terms :- vo-cab, questions , answers anything you want….if they get it wrong or don’t use English they get splodged ( water over the head or if you want to be really cruel you can use custard or something similar, )or question twister make a large board out of coloured circles (it can be as big as you want) for young students I show them flash cards if they answer right they get an easy position….but if they answer wrong a difficult position….. With older students you can use grammer question or whatever. Another water game sit students in a circle take a water bomb…..play word association game if they hesitate or answer wrong…burst the bomb over the head ….
My question is that I can entertain the girls but find it difficult to keep the boys interested help xx
Ps when you coming back to Italy I had family problems last year and I was very sad to have missed you.
Bye for now ,Geordie girl
I’m planning to organise 2-day camp for young adults.
questions about summer camps:
1/ what might be the themes of camp sessions
2/what get-to-know you activities are best for large groups (30 people)?
4/what might be the camp schedule
5/what to do with campers who do not want to participate
6/what are your favourite camp activities, camp songs
7/can you share your favourite team challenges
8/what to do in the evening if you can’t do fire songs
I would like to know if you have ever held half day summer camps ?
I am trying to avoid the issue of providing food, here in Croatia once you provide any type of lunch / snacks the laws become a nightmare 🙁
Do you provide other activities such as Arts and Crafts ??
Do you mix groups together ? (ability levels/ages)
I would like to try to provide 2 week long “Summer Camps” to introduce new children to my classes before the new school year begins.
In Mary’s experience, what is something to be avoided doing that a novice might try?
Schedules here:
– 9h30-16h30 : camp
From 8:30 to 9:30 kids can come and play little board games, puzzles, blocks, read books, color, etc INSIDE
Then at 9:30 circle time, songs, games all together ( GE games like ladders work well with mixed age group ) then we split in small groups for crafts or card games
10h30-11h : free time outside: draw with chalks, play badmington, football, ping pong, take care of our rabbit, blow bubbles
11:00-11:30 sport time all together : ultimate frisbee, hockey, etc
11:30: get ready for the picnic ; kids all seat at the table and we send them to the toilet and to wash their hands, then we apply sunscreen and finally 15 min later we walk to the playground or beach
1:30 we come back put everything away, circle time just like in the morning, younger kids go rest in a tent ( we don’t have an extra room )
At 3:00 free play, at 3:30 a team of kids prepare frozen yogurt or milkshake for everyone and we have a snack around 4:00
It is great to have so much time to talk with the kids and play, they have so many opportunities to practice.
We also have a mayor and a mayor assistant every morning
How do you get the kids talk in English?
With a whole day and many kids and little happenings to take care of, you can’t be everywhere at the same time and can’t make sure they all speak English.
I did a 2 day camp with a sports school,lots of wonderful staff. I had not to care for anything but for my lesson time and the time in between talking in English when they had other sport activities or meals, campfire etc.
However with 50 kids, it is impossible to walk all in one group make sure everyone talks English and noone L 1, the more as they are not only English learners participating.
Q2:
How much do you charge?
let’s say for a full one day camp, or an overnight camp.
Hi Margit
I think it’s impossible to get the kids talking with such a large group if you ar e the only English speaker!
Here there’s a ” camp counselor” every 6 children. This is why we have more opportunities to talk and interact.
Mikki can’t the kids provide their own picnic? THis is what we do
Hi everyone, I’ve never done a summer camp on my own before, although I have participated in many before. Here is what I’m doing: I’m talking with some of the managers of the swimming pools around trying to convince them to let me do it in their facilities, so far I’ve got two meetings. That’d be for an intensive weekly kids ( from 5 to 12 years old) camp that’d be 1.30 h. per day, 5 days a week. Every week a different theme, all Genki. My second idea’s got to do with teens, where I live, there are some places for them to spend free time they’re officially run by the local government, but still, teens have a saying in the program making decision. I want to work with them during July and help them with communication, grammar self confidence… And this is where, I’d like to know Mary’s and all of you opinion what kind of themes would make a teen want to enroll on a summer English camp? What are the things that they’d be interested in?
Great post thanks for the idea Richard!
I am arranging 3 summer camps this July and am having trouble with some new ideas. I have been doing camps for four years now and this year will have arround 80 kid per camp. The problem is that half of them are noe repeaters some on their 3rd camp. I am running out of ideas for themes and activities.
Any help or ideas would be greatly apprieciated.
Thank you for these comments. How do you plan for the summer camps. What topics to choose? How to establish a price that is reasonable for parents? How to group them?
Hello
I’m organizing a camp in England this year.
It would be fantastic if another GE teacher wanted to join in with his/her group…