Displaying items by tag: Science camp
Swift Nature Camp should be on your gift list!
The holidays are coming. And, once again, you're probably wondering what to get your children as a gift. Is your home already filled with every type of electronic item a child can want? We all have to much stuff so why not provide an experience that will live long past all the other stuff has been recycled.
Summer camp is all about making relationships and connections while many of the other gifts given these days isolate children from each other. instead this year give the gift that will reconnect them.
Consider giving your children the gift of CAMP! Camp doesn't need wrapping and its batteries won't wear out. And, unlike this year's hot, new toy, it is a gift your kids will remember well into adulthood ... we promise!
And camp will bring them other wonderful gifts, such as confidence, independence and self-discovery. Not to mention the gift of summer friendships.
It's true that we all have our moments in which we just want to chill out in front of a lit-up screen. But summer is an ideal time for your child to take an extended break from all the electronics and become immersed in the real world, in realtime with real experiences and real opportunities for genuine growth. It is the ultimate 24/7 playdate -- and it is the ultimate gift you can give your child.
Yes, gift certificates are available please give us an email or call so we can get it to you in time for the Holidays.
As most of you know SCHOOL is nearly over! And that means that the time you have been most looking forward too is here. CAMP! Have you invited your Friends to come to summer camp? You should, not only do you get a really cool hat but you save $300.00.
Swift Nature Camp should be on your gift list!
The holidays are coming. And, once again, you're probably wondering what to get your children as a gift. Is your home already filled with every type of electronic item a child can want? We all have to much stuff so why not provide an experience that will live long past all the other stuff has been recycled.
Summer camp is all about making relationships and connections while many of the other gifts given these days isolate children from each other. instead this year give the gift that will reconnect them.
Consider giving your children the gift of CAMP! Camp doesn't need wrapping and its batteries won't wear out. And, unlike this year's hot, new toy, it is a gift your kids will remember well into adulthood ... we promise!
And camp will bring them other wonderful gifts, such as confidence, independence and self-discovery. Not to mention the gift of summer friendships.
It's true that we all have our moments in which we just want to chill out in front of a lit-up screen. But summer is an ideal time for your child to take an extended break from all the electronics and become immersed in the real world, in realtime with real experiences and real opportunities for genuine growth. It is the ultimate 24/7 playdate -- and it is the ultimate gift you can give your child.
Yes, gift certificates are available please give us an email or call so we can get it to you in time for the Holidays.
At camp, children are given...
Enhanced Self-Esteem
Camp offers children many opportunities to become competent. Practicing both new and old skills on a regular basis, it makes sense that there will be improvement. Novices have chances to learn, while those who are more experienced can improve. Learning new skills and improving on old ones builds self-esteem. Children become more independent and self-reliant at camp with their new-found skills.
Trying New Things
Sending your child to camp is giving them an opportunity to try something new. No matter how many after-school programs or lessons a child takes, its likely they will never have the opportunity to try all that is offered at summer camp. In a supportive environment, the child can try at something new. The interesting twist to these activities is that, since campers often don’t know anyone else at camp before they go, they are more willing to try activities that their friends at home might not expect them to. The athlete can try out for the camp play, while the artist may dabble in sports. At camp, children can try new things and set their own goals for success.
Life Skills
Though years later, your child may not remember capture the flag games or the words to a camp song, the life lessons learned at camp will remain. At camp, a child learns how to take responsibility. The child who has never before made a bed, will learn how to smooth out sheets and blankets and tidy up a cubby. Though counselors will remind and encourage, campers quickly take responsibility for personal hygiene, and for more minor health issues, a camper learns to articulate what hurts and how to get help. All of this personal responsibility further fosters a sense of independence and self-esteem. Camp also improves a child’s social skills by making new friends and learning how to reach out to strangers. At camp, children learn to get along with others, all while living together 24 hours a day, learning about courtesy, compromise, teamwork, and respect.
Hidden Benefits of Camp
The benefits of overnight camp are not limited to children, but extend to parents as well. There is relief in knowing that your child is in a safe, exciting environment for the summer. Even if child care isn’t an issue, it’s often hard to find suitable activities for the summer, as well as finding peers for children to interact with. Camp offers entertainment and constant peer company. For parents that have more than one child, camp can give a younger sibling a chance to shine in the older one’s absence. And if you Homeschool camp is a wonderful way to help your child socialize. For families where all the children go to camp, parents have a chance to do things that would not interest the children. When a child makes it clear how excited he or she to go to camp, these parental excursions are guilt free.
Ninety percent of all forest-related fires in Wisconsin are started by humans. Education is a key prevention tool to develop an informed and caring citizenry that will take action to prevent useless fires and who support the use of prescribed burning as a management tool. This was the main point to the lessons recently taught at Swift Nature Camp.
Swift nature Camp invited the Minong and Solen Springs 5th grade classes out for 3 days and 2 nights of Science Camp. it was the last day when students had 2 fire presentations. The first was held by the local DNR, where they spoke how important it was to protect against wild fires and how they put them out. THe second presentation was by the local fire department and how they protect the local residents with their fire equipment. These 2 classes were very informative and kept the kids involved.
Swift Nature Camp should be on your gift list!
The holidays are coming. And, once again, you're probably wondering what to get your children as a gift. Is your home already filled with every type of electronic item a child can want? We all have to much stuff so why not provide an experience that will live long past all the other stuff has been recycled.
Summer camp is all about making relationships and connections while many of the other gifts given these days isolate children from each other. instead this year give the gift that will reconnect them.
Consider giving your children the gift of CAMP! Camp doesn't need wrapping and its batteries won't wear out. And, unlike this year's hot, new toy, it is a gift your kids will remember well into adulthood ... we promise!
And camp will bring them other wonderful gifts, such as confidence, independence and self-discovery. Not to mention the gift of summer friendships.
|
|
It's true that we all have our moments in which we just want to chill out in front of a lit-up screen. But summer is an ideal time for your child to take an extended break from all the electronics and become immersed in the real world, in realtime with real experiences and real opportunities for genuine growth. It is the ultimate 24/7 playdate -- and it is the ultimate gift you can give your child.
Yes, gift certificates are available please give us an email or call so we can get it to you in time for the Holidays.
Mom Was Right: Go Outside
- May 25, 2012, 11:26 a.m. ET
- By JONAH LEHRER
Humans are quickly becoming an indoor species.
In part, this is a byproduct of urbanization, as most people now live in big cities. Our increasing reliance on technology is also driving the trend, with a recent study concluding that American children between the ages of 8 and 18 currently spend more than four hours a day interacting with technology.
As a result, there's no longer time for nature: From 2006 to 2010, the percentage of young children regularly engaging in outdoor recreation fell by roughly 15 percentage points.
This shift is occurring even as scientists outline the mental benefits of spending time in natural settings. According to the latest research, untamed landscapes have a restorative effect, calming our frazzled nerves and refreshing the tired cortex. After a brief exposure to the outdoors, people are more creative, happier and better able to focus. If there were a pill that delivered these same results, we'd all be popping it.
Consider a forthcoming paper by psychologist Ruth Ann Atchley and her colleagues at the University of Kansas. To collect their data, the researchers partnered with the nonprofit Outward Bound, which takes people on extended expeditions into nature. To measure the mental benefits of hiking in the middle of nowhere, Dr. Atchley gave 60 backpackers a standard test of creativity before they hit the trail. She gave the same test to a different group of hikers four days into their journey.
The results were surprising: The hikers in the midst of nature showed a nearly 50% increase in performance on the test of creativity, and the effect held across all age groups.
"There's a growing advantage over time to being in nature," says Dr. Atchley. "We think that it peaks after about three days of really getting away, turning off the cellphone. It's when you have an extended period of time surrounded by that softly fascinating environment that you start seeing all kinds of positive effects in how your mind works."
This latest study builds on a growing body of evidence demonstrating the cognitive benefits of nature. Although many of us find the outdoors alienating and uncomfortable—the bugs, the bigger critters, the lack of climate control—the brain reacts to natural settings by, essentially, sighing in relief.
In 2009, a team of psychologists led by Marc Berman at the University of Michigan outfitted undergraduates with GPS receivers. Some of the students took a stroll in an arboretum, while others walked around the busy streets of downtown Ann Arbor.
The subjects were then run through a battery of psychological tests. People who had walked through the natural setting were in a better mood and scored significantly higher on tests of attention and short-term memory, which involved repeating a series of numbers backward. In fact, just glancing at a photograph of nature led to measurable improvements, at least when compared with pictures of cities.
This also helps to explain an effect on children with attention-deficit disorder. Several studies show that, when surrounded by trees and animals, these children are less likely to have behavioral problems and are better able to focus on a particular task.
Scientists have found that even a relatively paltry patch of nature can confer cognitive benefits. In the late 1990s, Frances Kuo, director of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, began interviewing female residents in the Robert Taylor Homes, a massive housing project on the South Side of Chicago.
Dr. Kuo and her colleagues compared women who were randomly assigned to various apartments. Some had a view of nothing but concrete sprawl, the blacktop of parking lots and basketball courts. Others looked out on grassy courtyards filled with trees and flower beds. Dr. Kuo then measured the two groups on a variety of tasks, from basic tests of attention to surveys that looked at how the women were handling major life challenges. She found that living in an apartment with a view of greenery led to significant improvements in every category.
Cities are here to stay; so are smartphones. What this research suggests, however, is that we need to make time to escape from everyone else, to explore those parts of the world that weren't designed for us. It's when we are lost in the wild that the mind is finally at home.
At camp, children are given...
Enhanced Self-Esteem
Camp offers children many opportunities to become competent. Practicing both new and old skills on a regular basis, it makes sense that there will be improvement. Novices have chances to learn, while those who are more experienced can improve. Learning new skills and improving on old ones builds self-esteem. Children become more independent and self-reliant at camp with their new-found skills.
Trying New Things
Sending your child to camp is giving them an opportunity to try something new. No matter how many after-school programs or lessons a child takes, its likely they will never have the opportunity to try all that is offered at summer camp. In a supportive environment, the child can try at something new. The interesting twist to these activities is that, since campers often don’t know anyone else at camp before they go, they are more willing to try activities that their friends at home might not expect them to. The athlete can try out for the camp play, while the artist may dabble in sports. At camp, children can try new things and set their own goals for success.
Life Skills
Though years later, your child may not remember capture the flag games or the words to a camp song, the life lessons learned at camp will remain. At camp, a child learns how to take responsibility. The child who has never before made a bed, will learn how to smooth out sheets and blankets and tidy up a cubby. Though counselors will remind and encourage, campers quickly take responsibility for personal hygiene, and for more minor health issues, a camper learns to articulate what hurts and how to get help. All of this personal responsibility further fosters a sense of independence and self-esteem. Camp also improves a child’s social skills by making new friends and learning how to reach out to strangers. At camp, children learn to get along with others, all while living together 24 hours a day, learning about courtesy, compromise, teamwork, and respect.
Hidden Benefits of Camp
The benefits of overnight camp are not limited to children, but extend to parents as well. There is relief in knowing that your child is in a safe, exciting environment for the summer. Even if child care isn’t an issue, it’s often hard to find suitable activities for the summer, as well as finding peers for children to interact with. Camp offers entertainment and constant peer company. For parents that have more than one child, camp can give a younger sibling a chance to shine in the older one’s absence. And if you Homeschool camp is a wonderful way to help your child socialize. For families where all the children go to camp, parents have a chance to do things that would not interest the children. When a child makes it clear how excited he or she to go to camp, these parental excursions are guilt free.
Summer school, all-year school, summer sports programs, and electronic media have become the staples of children’s play in recent years. Children are kept fully scheduled...
Our kids will need to find a way to reconnect with our natural environment to become participants in a global effort to restore ecological balance. Environmental awareness begins with a sense of personal connection to nature.
How do parents bring back balance to a child’s experience? One answer has been around since the 1920’s: summer camp. Modern summer camps can guide kids back into a natural alliance with nature through the pure fun of movement. The challenges of summer camp are fun rather than stressful, but they are no less effective for developing a child’s sense of confidence and independence.
One good example of a modern “green” summer camp is Swift Nature Camp near Minong, Wisconsin. The directors have developed policies that promote camper experience perfectly attuned to the needs of the times, without sacrificing the great fun and memorable friendships that are the classic benefits of summer camp.
Jeff and Lonnie Lorenz, directors of Swift Nature Camp, begin with their policy on electronic devices. “We do not permit cellular phones, BlackBerries, pagers, radios, iPods, cassette or CD players, laser pens, TVs, Game Boys or digital cameras. They simply are not what camp is about.”
Swift Nature Camp combines traditional camp activities with ways to immerse themselves in and learn about nature is likeliest to succeed in inspiring environmental awareness in campers.
Signing up far ahead of time is important. The first thing to do when selecting a kid summer camp is to look at your child’s needs and wants. Will they thrive in a sports camp or a general camp. What do they want from their summer? Skill building or building friendships?
Summer camps should be a complete departure away from teachers and a time for mentors to step in. The essence of the best camps are imaginative, experienced and quick witted people who staff them. These mentors shape up the milieu of the camp so that every camper brings life lessons learned when he or she returns home. The experience which is gained and the knowledge acquired in every case go a long way in shaping up the overall persona of the person a camper becomes.
Kids Summer Camp is a resource with more focus on arts and crafts with special regard to environmental consciousness. Kids go on from camp refreshed, delighted and full of experience when they return to regular classes in the fall. The exposure that summer camps offer a child will stay with the camper for the rest of a life as the wisdom that can only come from experience. How can parents with a good grasp of what is good for their kids find the right camp? The best place to search for obtaining precise information is of course the World Wide Web.
With a bit of patient research on the internet, you can easily lay your hands on some resourceful data. Parents might assume that if they are paying a higher rate for the kid summer camp that the child will return home with more education. They disregard the fact that the true meaning of summer camps is all about the experience. With the guided presentations of web program directors, the best traditional camps included have woken up to the archetypes involved in the whole process.
Parents ought to seek the best professionalism from persons representing summer camps. There is always a lot of apprehension and questioning for parents in terms of pros and cons their child will face in every social situation life brings. But the right kid summer camp is a good opportunity for every camper to socialize at a level which encompasses every facet of life.
