Activities for Everyone

Rockbrook Girls Smiles at Pottery Activity

The first day of activities this session is full speed ahead with all of the activities ready for action. As we all enjoyed perfect summer weather (warm during the day and cool at night), campers were making pottery, designing weaving projects, and decorating their first pillow case. A few girls also went rock climbing with Clyde, our adventure director. Girls shot arrows and guns, did flips at gymnastics and cannonballs at the lake. Down at the equestrian center, Cara had girls up and riding.

Halfway through the morning at our “Muffin Break,” everyone ran for a treat freshly baked by Liz. We look forward to seeing what flavor she makes for us everyday. Today, lemon.

Jerry Stone at Castle Rock

After rest hour, Jerry, Jessi, Tara and Michelle took a big group of campers on a hike to Kilroy’s Cabin. This is a special hike to a remote part of the Rockbrook property that first takes you to Castle Rock where you can rest and enjoy the unforgettable view of the French Broad river valley. From there, the hike is a bushwhack through the forest with no trail as a guide. Jerry knows the way, but few others can find the old abandoned cabin. Kilroy’s Cabin is the center of an elaborate, and maybe a little bit spooky, story told at camp. I’ll save the details for later, but it involves a nurse with red hair, love, jealousy and a car crash late one stormy night on a slippery bridge. Ooooooooo. (cue eery music!).

For dinner, a classic camp favorite was served— spaghetti with red sauce. In addition to the salad bar, each table had a bowl of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and basil, and warm bread. It really hit the spot after our action-packed day. But that’s pretty normal for Rockbrook. Camp is action!

Camp Milk and Cookies

Summer Camp Treats Cookies

More Cookies!

At camp, there are cookies every night! It’s a long standing tradition at Rockbrook for all the campers (and counselors 🙂 ) to have a cookie and small cup of milk at the end of the day. Everyday the kitchen crew makes a batch of homemade cookies— chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, cinnamon nut, peanut butter, or maybe sugar cookies. Which kind is a daily surprise. When the evening program is finished, a couple of staff members from each line grabs their bag of cookies and jug of milk from the kitchen and sets it all out for the girls.

It may seem a little strange to have cookies right before bed, but it makes a nice little snack to get you through the night. Don’t forget to brush your teeth before hitting the hay. Maybe read a little in bed, and the next thing you know you’ll be waking up to the morning bell. Ahhh camp..

Let’s Go for a Swim!

Swim Summer Camps Girls

No matter what set of activities you sign up for at camp, there are two times each day when the lake is open for “free swim.” These are right before lunch and right before dinner. It’s up to you how you spend this free time, but it feels really great to jump in the lake for a swim after you’ve spent the day at other activities around camp. You might have been playing basketball with friends in the gym, or climbing the alpine tower, or just walking back from horseback riding, but chances are you’ll be at least little hot and sweaty. It’s summer after all! So head down to the lake, and you can meet up with some of your cabin mates and find out how they’ve been spending their day. The Rockbrook swimming lake is fed by a mountain stream, so as anyone will tell you, it’s guaranteed to cool you off.

Let’s go for a summer swim!

Summer Camp Archery

So let’s say you get to summer camp and you’ve never tried archery. Sure you’ve seen it on TV and you know it means pulling back an arrow in a bow, releasing it while aiming at a target, and hopefully hitting the target in the center. But you’ve never really tried it before.

Summer Camp Archery Girl

At first, it’s kind of funny. After learning the basics about the equipment and how to shoot, you give archery a try and shoot arrows over, under, to the side, and anywhere but on the target. Slowly but surely though, each round lets you make small adjustments. A little coaching gets thrown in, and you are soon scoring points on the target.

Next thing you know, you’re hooked, and you’re selecting archery again for one of your daily camp activities. Archery becomes one of your favorite things to do at summer camp.

That’s cool, but what do you do when you get home from camp? How can you keep shooting, and improve you archer’s skills? Well, there might be a local archery club near you. You could also form an archery club and join the Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) organization.  If you can find an adult supervisor, set up a safe archery range, and gather the proper equipment, you can begin to practice shooting archery all year long.  This might be tough to do by yourself, but if you can get several friends and their parents to get excited about the idea, you can do it!  Your club can then compete in local or regional tournaments, and you might even be able to join the youth world team and compete in other countries representing America.

Archery can be a lifelong sport, and just think, it all started at summer camp.

Summer’s for Getting Outdoors!

Kids Outdoor Activity

In the recent debate over how many days kids should stay in school, it’s often claimed that they could learn more by shortening the summer vacation. More days studying math, science, arts and reading would make our kids more educated, it’s claimed. Certainly this is true; the more you study something, the better your competency in that subject. However, what is lost by taking time from summer and devoting it to further study? If we choose more school time, what are we neglecting as a result?

One thing that would clearly suffer, and something that summer camps are known to enhance, is time outside, sustained outdoor activity for kids. It’s during the summer that kids have the time and the permission to play outside. They can return to nature, explore all the amazing details of the environment, and really feel what so many of their ancestors felt outdoors. Being inside at school most of day, and for most of the days each year, there are very few opportunities for kids to enjoy outdoor activity. They suffer from what Richard Louv has now famously dubbed “Nature Deficit Disorder.” The psychological, personal and intellectual consequences of our kids losing touch of nature are now well understood, and are widely condemned. Extending our kid’s school year, and thereby further limiting their time outside in Nature deserves that same condemnation.

This is also an environmental protection issue. If we reduce the ability of our kids to experience and know the outdoors, we make it much less likely they will value and love it. If their Nature Deficit Disorder is made worse by reducing their time outside of school, they won’t feel strongly about the wonders Nature provides, and consequently they will feel less concern for protecting the environment. Not knowing and loving nature from their personal experience, they’ll be less apt to protect it. Here again, time outside (and away from school) makes kids more human. It provides another, equally important, form of education. Denying them opportunities to learn outside, even when in service of traditional academic learning, is a perilous position for us all.

4th of July… Camp Style

Watermelon Picnic

The 4th of July began with everyone waking up to the sound of horses running down the cabin lines, and the equestrian staff yelling “The British are coming; wake up; wake up!!” Dressed in festive red, white and blue, the riders and their horses made quite a scene. The entire camp stumbled out of their cabins and made their way to hill for a quick flag raising ceremony, ending with everyone reciting the pledge of allegiance.

The rest of the day we enjoyed our regular camp activities… crafts, outdoor adventure, sports, horseback riding.  Then for dinner, Rick prepared an excellent cookout of burgers, corn, chips and watermelon.  We all sat and ate on the hill, and since we had some music playing, sang and danced too.  It was a nice way to spend the  evening.

Capping off the day, everyone gathered again on the hill for a great fireworks display. For about 20 minutes bangs and colorful flashes in the sky entertained us before turning in for the night.  Overall, it was a great day of all-camp activities and holiday celebration fun.

Crazy Games and Fun!

Crazy Painted Camp Kids

Whoa, what’s going on here!?

Is it a craft project gone horribly wrong? The results of a crazy painting game?  A strange spa treatment of some sort?  A super intense outdoor food fight?

Nope.  It’s actually a glimpse into one of our all-camp afternoon games we played last summer.  This one was a camp Olympics.  We divided all the girls into four countries (teams) and gave each a different color: red, green, glue and yellow.  As you can see, red was China.  All the teams then competed in all sorts of field games and races.  We had the crab walk, an obstacle course, an egg toss, a 3-legged race, a hopping race, and so many more.  Lots of running!  Cheering! Excitement!  Crazy Camp Fun!

These three girls showed a little too much enthusiasm, it seems, with their team colors.  Everyone painted themselves a little bit, but this might be a little over the top! 😉

Kids Gotta Love S’mores!

Closeup Smores bite

Let’s talk s’mores… Don’t you just love ’em?  You know how to make them.  Take two graham crackers and a piece of plain milk chocolate, roast a marshmallow on a stick over a fire, and make a chocolate marshmallow sandwich with the graham crackers. Some people like their marshmallow golden brown and gooey, while others are fine burning the marshmallow a little bit to make a charred skin. Either way, they are an excellent sweet treat out around the campfire and one of every kid’s favorite outdoor activities.

Did you know that nobody knows for sure who invented s’mores? The first recorded recipe appears in a Girl Scout book called Tramping and Trailing published in 1927, but s’mores were certainly around before that. For example, Moon Pies, which are also made of a cracker, marshmallow and chocolate, were first produced in 1917.  It’s a bit of a mystery, but it’s fun to think that making s’mores has been an outdoor activity kids have enjoyed at Rockbrook since the very beginning.

Fun Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts Activities

Here is one of the arts and crafts activities the girls enjoyed this summer at camp.

Can you tell what it is?  Pine cones tied to a branch with string— it’s a mobile.  What’s fun is using different sized pine cones and then arranging them with different lengths of string.  When the stick has more than one branching part, even better!  This kind of craft activities is really like making a sculpture.  It’s putting three-dimensional objects together to end up with some cool art. One girl turned her mobile into a bird feeder by adding some peanut butter and birdseed to the pine cones. Functional art too!  Arts and crafts are always fun at camp.

Take a look!