The Quiet Thoughts

There are times when I can’t force the thinking to stop. I worry about camp and how to make camp better. I worry about making the right decisions for camp. I worry about making the right decisions for the campers.

…to calm the thinking…to calm the thinking…what is next.

Going to a conference in BC in a couple of weeks.  I put in a proposal to speak, titled:  Re-inventing the Summer Camp Experience – Moving toward unstructured play…

Here is the description:

Summer Camp is a natural place in which both children and families can explore, play and interact in nature; so why does camp fall short in the new children and nature movement?

Summer camp is many things, but mostly scheduled and programmed time for children with very little time for unstructured play. Summer camp is on the edge of a paradigm shift – trying to stay relevant and applicable in a world where there are so many choices and so many experiences to be had. How can the summer camp experience be re-invented to help both children and families connect with nature in a more un-programmed way?

Participants will explore the current shortcomings of the summer camp experience and discuss and search out new ways that camp can help children and families connect with nature in more engaging and unstructured ways. Participants will leave with a solid base of understanding as to the changes that need to take place for summer camp to become an active and engaged part of the children and nature movement.

The workshop will cover where the current state of summer camp programming is at and then, using a variety of interactive methods, create a vision of how camp programming can be changed to help the summer camp experience become a partner in bringing children and families back to nature and unstructured play.

They went for it, now I have to do up the session, put together the puzzle pieces that I have so far and hopefully they can help put some of them together.