Day Camp

During the last week of June I was the director of a Day Camp for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children ages 8 to 12. We only had eleven kids register for camp. I was really disappointed I have spent months planning this camp. I was going to cancel if we didn't have at least ten. After the first day I was glad we only had 11 kids. I think next year I am going place a limit of 15 kids just to be safe. Camp ran from 8 - 4 Monday - Friday. I got there 30 min early everyday and stayed until 5pm. It was a long week for me. Just as an aside note you should know that the air condition at the Deaf Center was broken all week. We had a big fan to cool the whole gym. I had one intern Heather who was there every day and then several other wonderful volunteers. The theme this year was fish and underwater life. Not a topic I know a lot about but Sandy a neighboring city has an aquarium and to be honest I picked the theme knowing we would have at least one easy field trip.
Monday was our first day. We started off with some getting to know you games. After that I had a big project planned. The gym would be where we would spend most of our time at the center so I thought It would be cool to do a mural on the wall (that could be removed) that was an underwater view. The kids had to make any type of underwater animal they wanted to put on our mural. Several kids make pac-man I never knew he lived underwater but I let them hang it up anyway. most of the kids were bored with this after an hour and wanted to run and play. This distracted the kids still working. I told the kids they could start helping clean up or they could make a second fish. Most of the kids choose the latter option. We had an inflatable slip 'n' slide for that afternoon. But the company delivered it over an hour late. That left me with an empty hour. I was desperately trying to fill water balloons as fast as I could so that we could have a water balloon toss. My fingers hurt so bad from tying all those balloons. Of course it might have hurt worse because my fingers were also burnt from using the hot glue gun. When the slip 'n' slide finally came it was a big hit. We all loved it adult and kids. The first day was exhausting I was asleep before Colt came home from POST that night.

Our underwater mural

Ashley and I racing down the inflatable waterside

Tuesday was a great day we had a field trip almost all day. It kept the kids busy and happy (most of them). We went to Jordanelle water reservoir. It was so beautiful up there. When we first stepped out of the vans we were attacked by mosquitoes. I even go bit right on my cheek. I had to use all of my self control not to scratch my face to pieces. Luckily the nature center saved us they had bug repellent. We learned about fish that live in the Provo river, got to try fishing (no one caught anything), made T-shirts and went hiking. It was a very busy day everyone was tired by the time we got back to the center.

Fishing at Jordanelle

Wednesday was the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. I had a lot of volunteers that day. Each adult was in charge of two kids. Which was a perfect ratio. The hardest thing about camp that I had noticed at this point was getting the kids attention. If they were not looking at you that meant they were not "listening." Having just 2 kids to keep track of was manageable. The kids loved watching the octopus be fed, touching all of the animals at the petting zoo and the sting ray. When we got back to the center We had different activities and games to play. The kids hated doing structured activities at the center. I started to dread Friday ( we were going to be at the center all day). They just wanted to run around a play. I tried to give them time to play and time to do activities. By the end of the day I was ready for the end of the week, but I consoled
myself with the fact that I had at least passed hump day.

Goofing around at the aquarium

Thursday was great were spent very little time at the center. We went to Cabela's in Lehi. Cabela's is a hunting and fishing store. They have a large aquarium and huge displays set up with taxidermy animals. The kids favorite part was an arcade style shooting range with an unlimited number of tokens. They were also giving fudge samples. All of the kids left Cabela's happy. We had a quick lunch at the Deaf Center and then we went swimming. The pool was defiantly the best part of camp. Everyone loved swimming. One little boy in our camp is very small for his size and has some additional delays. He was very afraid of the waterfall part but after a little coaxing he was walking through the waterfall by himself. There was also a water slide. At the beginning of the day he was not willing go on it. I told him I would go with him. He doesn't have the swimming skills to go alone. After some encouragement he agreed by the time we had left he went down 4 times I was so proud of him!

The group at Cabela's

Friday!!! I was almost done! It was so hard to get up that morning my mind and body were so batter bruised and exhausted from the week. Friday was a hard day. The kids just wanted to run around and play they didn't want to do any of the planned activities. Heather (my intern) and I really struggled to get them to do a few activities in the morning. We made pizza for lunch that day. I got stuck in the kitchen rotating the pizzas to get them all cooked in time for lunch. I told Heather to just let them play as long as they were being safe and happy. We ate the pizza and then we had ice cream sundaes. That afternoon was rough We got the kids through several other activities and that for the last hour I just let them play. I figured it was more important for the kids to have a positive feeling about camp than it was for them to finish every activity I had planned. That night when I finally got home Colt and I decided to do nothing. That is exactly what we did and it was wonderful!

Making pizza

Sitting pretty for one last group picture