After many years out of school, this summer vacation brought back memories of lazy afternoons spent gorging on mangoes, playing with grandparents in the backyard of their home, a lot of TV and a book or two. Fast forward to 2016, and summer vacations are action packed, there seems like no one has any time to be lost! Kids are kept on their toes and lazing seems to be a bad idea.
I feel we all live today in a “packed & packaged” world. Be it food, school, homework or daily routine activities…they are all pre-packed and colorfully presented to attract the consumers. Well…as a teacher and as a parent I have learnt early that this will not sustain. Presentation seems to be the only key!
Summer camps of today are well packed and then packaged for consumption. A busy day is created by the camp organizers. Brimming with a sense of purpose, parents also like to send off their kids to eco-friendly summer camps, where they not only learn about team work but also stay close to nature. There are camps for science and robotics. And then there is the math camps for the math buffs.
At the school where I work, we did a organize one such camp. We tried to create what I did during my childhood during summers. Just that the lazing part was taken out of the agenda. We created events that could expose children to different indoor and outdoor activities. The idea was to make it homely, busy and something that was new for the kids.
As one of the coordinators, during the first 2-3 days I saw a few unwilling kids come into the camp. Within a week they turned around and got busy. Pottery was new and kids were willing to get their hands dirty to make a nice pot or a plate. The other interesting item and popular with all was Dance. We sprinkled the day with some computer classes, puzzles in math and did crosswords. They got into all of it. I did squeeze in some lazing time into the schedule by having a few movies to watch. We watched, laughed and cried.
One lesson I learnt – when we do not insist on doing well and there is no pressure to score points – kids do an amazing job. They involve and don’t avoid. As teachers we had our share of fun. I would say – my purpose for coordinating a camp was to let kids have fun. I can declare – Mission Accomplished!
Very Nice effort with the camp. I wish the school adds more where parents get involved as well.
How true and thoughtful.
Summer Camp was a whole load of fun and more fun. The most rewarding part of the camp was that all of us who participated in the camp learnt a lot of things. It happened without anyone realising it because of the activities, which involved a lot of life skills and values that were interwoven into them. All of us worked as transformers and when the children left the camp they were all charged with renewed energy and permanently changed for the better. Kudos Rishika.
Intriguing & Taught provoking. “Electronic toys may hamper language development in Kids”.
Thanks to TATVA for making kids to play with traditional toys and puzzles
That is a good account of how the transition has taken place from 20 years ago to date. It is not bad or good. It just is changing times. As long as all stakeholders have fun and are happy – I guess it is good.
This is a good,common sense article.Very helpful to one who is just finding the resouces about this part.It will certainly help educate me.