What's an Accredited Camp?

What does it mean to be an “accredited summer camp?”

For summer camps, there is a national organization of camp professionals dedicated to identifying and standardizing the most important knowledge, experience and practices of quality camp programs. It’s called the American Camp Association (ACA). For almost 100 years, the ACA has gathered and refined what it considers to be the “best practices” and has defined almost 300 industry-accepted and government-recognized standards for summer camps.

For a summer camp to be “ACA accredited,” like Rockbrook, it means that camp is abiding by the policies, procedures and practices accepted by the best camps in the country. It means that camp has agreed to regular on-site inspections and professional reviews. And for parents, it means you can feel more confident that the camp is taking the best possible care of your child.  Visit the Parents Section of the ACA website to learn more (highly recommended!).

With the American Camp Association’s long history, body of camp related knowledge, and level of professionalism, Rockbrook is proud to be an ACA accredited summer camp.

Favorite Outdoor Activities for Children

Outdoors activities, like overnight camping, are one of the things children really look forward to at camp. Getting together with friends, hiking into the woods, setting up a campsite, having dinner around a campfire, making s’mores, and sleeping in a tent are all so much fun. Just being outdoors like this is so different that ordinary life, children really enjoy it. Gosh, just playing with your flashlight in the tent can be a thrill, and think of the shadow puppets you can make!

All of this in addition to the benefits of genuine outdoor experience— no wonder children like it.

Camp Cabin Photos Taken

Today we took our cabin photos for this third session of camp. Each cabin decides where they would like their photo taken, for example at the lake, on a lodge porch, or on the hill. Some are pretty creative, like this outtake of a cabin who took theirs at the senior line showers.

Opening Day for Second Session Camp 2007

Today is the first day of our second session. With so many people who signed up early for it, and with the session completely full, it’s going to be so great to finally have everyone together, both returning campers and new campers alike. It’s always very exciting to start a new session. The counselors are just buzzing about in anticipation!

If you’re on your way, we can’t wait to see you!

First Session Camp Spirit Fire

We just finished our first session of camp this summer, and it was fantastic! Amazing counselors, excited campers, and good weather, made for nonstop fun for everyone. These last few days were a mixture of being together, celebrating, and remembering all the things we enjoyed during the session. This is what makes the final campfire, our “spirit fire,” so moving. We’re there with all of our friends; we all have shared so much; and now we’re saying goodbye until next summer. It’s tough and very emotional, but it helps us realize what we really love about being at camp… being with each other in such a wonderful and beautiful place. Wow.

Thanks everyone for such an awesome session.

A Place to Grow

In her book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Wendy Mogel critiques what she sees as a troubling trend in parenting these days— an excessive tendency to shield children from any kind of discomfort.

“Parents are so busy protecting their children that they don’t give them a chance to learn how to maneuver on their own outside home or school.”

Spending time at summer camp serves as a welcome counter force to this trend. As they choose their own activities, sleep in rustic cabins, live with and make new friends, young people at camp are given a great opportunity to grow. Far beyond what parents might orchestrate at home, camp encourages kids to become more independent, to try new things, and to learn from the experience.

It’s a lot of things (like a really fun time!), but perhaps most fundamentally, camp is a setting for exploring who we really are.  Stepping out of our normal routines, we can try new things, endure discomforts and setbacks (try again), and marvel at unexpected accomplishments.

Nature-Deficit Disorder

In his recent book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv talks about summer camp serving as a healthy response to our modern tendency to be “plugged in” (to electronic media) and “in motion” (between school, lessons, sports practice, etc.). He writes, “as the young spend less and less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow— physiologically and psychologically. This reduces the richness of human experience.”

At the same time, there’s something magical about the sort of sustained exposure to nature camps provide. Louv sites an amazing array of studies linking nature experience and healthy child development, and concludes “I believe that offering children direct contact with nature— getting their feet wet and hands muddy— should be at the top of the list of vital camp experiences.”