kids activities Archives

Home /
Camp Blog /

December 8, 2008March 24, 2023 • Arts • rbc

How to Make Wheel-Thrown Ceramics

“Can you learn how to use the potter’s wheel?”

Yes, you can! The Rockbrook ceramics camp activities let campers improve their pottery skills so they can learn to throw pots on the wheel. After practicing other ceramics techniques, specifically hand-building methods like pinch, coil and slab pottery, it’s exciting to learn about the potter’s wheel.

Like any skill, this takes practice, but to get started you’ll work on 4 key steps:

Centering the clay on the wheel.
Opening up the center of the clay.
Pulling up the walls and shaping the piece.
Trimming the base of the piece.

Of course there’s lots of detail to each of these steps, but this brief outline gives you a sense of what’s involved in learning to throw ceramics on the potter’s wheel. Real art! Over a few weeks at camp, you’ll be surprised how good you can get and be amazed at the cool things you can make. Maybe next summer, you can finish a whole set of matching mugs!

P.S. If you want to read more about it, check out the book Wheel-Thrown Ceramics, by our friend Don Davis. It’s the best one around.

Leave a Comment

November 13, 2008June 1, 2020 • Games • rbc

How to Play Tetherball

Lately we’ve been getting a few questions about how to play the game tetherball.

So, how do you play tetherball?

The main goal is for each player (there are only two kids, one against the other) to hit the ball in a direction that will wrap the cord up around the center pole. Each opponent is hitting the ball in an opposite direction, so that’s the contest— you hit it one way and she hits it the other way. The trick is to hit the ball so that it’s hard for your opponent to reach the ball and hit it back. One strategy is to hit the ball downward so that it goes high (and hopefully out of reach) when it wraps around to your opponent’s side. You win when you wrap the cord completely around in your direction and the ball hits the pole.

After you play a while kids can add rules that make the game more challenging and fun. Maybe you can allow only certain kinds of hits, or require that the ball wrap around high on the pole, or create funny penalties for “carrying” the ball or grabbing the string. Like all great games, there are loads of options!

Tetherball is one of those amazing outdoor games kids love to play at camp. Got a free minute? Let’s play!

P.S. Want to learn more about tetherball? Check out this article.

Leave a Comment

September 8, 2008May 28, 2020 • Arts • rbc

Fun Arts and Crafts

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!

Leave a Comment

May 21, 2008July 30, 2020 • Children • rbc

Kids Camp Outdoor Memories

More comments and memories from a Rockbrook Alumna…

“Every memory is a favorite memory, but there was one that my friend and I do get a kick out of (by the way, her name is Natalie Berry and we have been best friends for 30 yrs). One year our cabin was one of the wild cabins. We all were friends and had gone to Rockbrook for several years. We came up with this name that whenever anything went wrong we blamed “Bob.” Needless to say it picked up like wild fire and we got in trouble for stirring things up. It’s one of those ‘You had to be there’ situations.
“I truly miss Rockbrook. It is my childhood and a great past that I can share and relate with my grandmother Virginia Summer, who also went there. Now I have a 7yr old daughter who I sing camp songs to. My wish is to send her to Rockbrook and who knows maybe one day she’ll have a daughter that she can send too.”

Leave a Comment

February 20, 2008May 24, 2020 • Summer Camp • rbc

Kids Summer Program

Is it possible to have “too much summer camp?” According to Abby Brunks, in her recent Atlanta Journal Constitution article, the answer might be yes. Ms. Brunks fears that being at summer camp can become an extension of the busy, overly scheduled life most kids experience throughout the school year. She believes that kids need a “good long break to just hang out,” and therefore cautions parents not to send their kids away to summer camp (particularly “specialty camps” apparently) for “weeks on end.”

Here at Rockbrook, we understand this concern. That’s why we build into every day a good amount of free time when campers can just “hang out.” There’s time to sit on the porch and talk, explore one of the camp streams, goof around with your cabin mates, make up a song, write a letter, or just relax. For years we’ve recognized this as one of the great opportunities of camp— it’s a chance to experience carefree summer living, to have the freedom to decide for yourself what you feel like doing, while having so many fun options easily available. That’s why coming to camp is so great. Sure at home you may be able to hang out, but you won’t have near the opportunity to try new things, meet new people, and explore nature. And because it is so refreshingly different from home or school, weeks easily seem like days.

Leave a Comment

December 3, 2007December 15, 2022 • Children • rbc

How to Play Dizzy Lizzy

Here’s how to play Dizzy Lizzy, a great outdoor game for kids to try. It’s actually a relay, a game where two or more teams race each other while completing some challenging task or overcoming some kind of obstacle.

In this case, members of each team line up and one by one run a ways out to a baseball bat on the ground. There they have to put their forehead on the bat, and keeping the other end on the ground, spin around the bat a few times (usually 3, 4 or 5 times). Needless to say, this makes you quite dizzy, and then comes the most difficult part— running back to your team so the next person can go. It’s always pretty funny to see a dizzy person try to run in a straight line, and pretty fun to try it yourself!

Next time you need a fun outdoor game for kids, give it a try!

P.S. One safety note: Be sure to play on a level, open patch of grass. You don’t want to run into something when you’re that dizzy!

Leave a Comment

October 24, 2007October 23, 2020 • Games • rbc

Summer Games for Kids

What is that thing?! Well, the kids at camp have named it “The Toy,” but it’s basically an aqua ropes-course, a climbing structure made of wood and rope suspended over the water on one side of the Rockbrook lake. The most popular game kids play on it is really challenging— you try to reach the farthest of 5 rings (like the girl in the photo) as you go out hand-to-hand over the water.

This is just one of the options at camp and is something you don’t have to do if you don’t want to. If swimming is more your thing, that’s fine. Even if you don’t want to get in the water, that’s fine too.

Of course, if you don’t make it to the 5th ring, there’s a fun splash at the bottom! But if you do make it to the last ring, and only a few kids have, we announce your name in the dining hall and reward you with a special treat/prize.

Do you know what the prize is? Let us know in the comments!

Leave a Comment

May 25, 2007July 21, 2020 • Games • rbc

Childrens Camp Games

Basketball! Dodgeball! Kickball! Four Square! Volleyball! And more versions of tag than you can count! There always seems to be some kind of gym sports camp game going on— counselors and campers running around and having fun in the Rockbrook gym. One of the best things to do is to make up a game. Take something you already know, like dodgeball for example, and then change it up somehow, like by having 3 or 4 teams instead of 2, or playing with a really huge ball, or having a “come back to life” ball. Gosh, the options are almost endless!

Leave a Comment

April 18, 2007May 11, 2020 • Rock Climbing • rbc

Girls Summer Adventure Activities

Here’s a middler (who’s finished either the 5th or 6th grade of school) climbing up the route called “Whim” on Castle Rock. It’s just one of the rock climbing routes we have on the camp property. There are definitely some challenging spots, with a cool “foot-switch” move about half way up, so we’ve given it a rating of 5.6. Look at the fancy “mantle” move she is doing by pushing down with her palm. Overall, this climb is about 70 feet high, but it feels much higher because it’s got an amazing view of the French Broad River valley from the top.

Just a glimpse into the great outdoor adventure we have at camp.

Leave a Comment

Explore Topics

Sign Up for the Newsletter