July 29th, 2017
21ST CENTURY CLASSROOM
Open Doors summer camp celebrates mindfulness and learning
By ALISHA SAWYER
Special to the Messenger
ST. ALBANS — Students have been busy here at St. Albans City School during Open Doors summer camp, and loving every minute! Groups of students are spending their day in a variety of programs.
Each morning begins with breakfast in the cafeteria. From there we celebrate achievements at camp or home, and have been able to recognize a few summer birthdays as well. We move on to silly camp songs, our morning greeting, practice our deep breathing, then we take a few moments to wish well our classmates, teachers and friends who aren’t able to join us that day.
This year we added an actual wishing well for people to write their own hopes and other things that they would like us to wish well during our morning meeting. It sends us off to start our day with caring, kindness and mindfulness.
Our first morning class choices for variety camp are hip hop, cooking with Ms. Patty, Minecraft and sports sampler. The dance students have been traveling to Electric Youth Dance each morning where they have been learning and practicing two full routines. Ms. Cheryl-Ann planned fun craft projects for the students each day as well! Ms. Patty and Mrs. Cain have been cooking up all kinds of yummy creations. The students have made salsa, s’more banana boats, english muffin pizzas, fruit salad, and banana oatmeal cookies - some of the students have already made them at home.
The Minecraft group has been working to build together on our school server. Mrs. Cameron-Muscente has created different challenges for the groups to face each day. The Sports Sampler group has been busy the entire time with a ton of different activities. They have playedkickball, dodgeball, four-square, baseball, basketball, foosball, as well as different fitness room activities.
We take a break for lunch and thestudentshaveanopportunityto share performances. Then it is on to the afternoon with gardening, West African drumming, arts and crafts, CHOMP, yoga and JUST DANCE. While we planned for the gardening group to be outside working on transplanting, weed cleanup, and some early harvest the weather did not cooperate.
We made some adjustments and using kid democracy, chose different activities each day, though we did walk through the garden and make some observations about why the fruits hadn’t ripened yet, we think that they miss the sun too! The West African Drumming group worked with Mrs. Cameron-Muscente to understand the cultural significance of drumming, as well as learning to drum themselves!
The arts and crafts group has made clay, painted their clay shapes, created salt and watercolor art, made yarn shapes and then ended the week making tissue paper flowers. CHOMP was another cooking class where the students learned about choosing healthy options in meal planning (CHOMP) they made homemade ranch dressing, fruit salsa with cinnamon chips, frozen yogurt bark, banana pancakes and pizza quesadillas.
The yoga and JUST DANCE group first slowed down their bodies and minds with some gentle yoga and meditation, then we cranked up the tunes and ended the class with some fun dance moves.
Our day closed with a quick share and then we boarded buses and headed home. Each and every day was fun filled and wonderful, we love summer camp! --Alisha Sawyer is the St. Albans City School director of school enrichment
Open Doors summer camp celebrates mindfulness and learning
By ALISHA SAWYER
Special to the Messenger
ST. ALBANS — Students have been busy here at St. Albans City School during Open Doors summer camp, and loving every minute! Groups of students are spending their day in a variety of programs.
Each morning begins with breakfast in the cafeteria. From there we celebrate achievements at camp or home, and have been able to recognize a few summer birthdays as well. We move on to silly camp songs, our morning greeting, practice our deep breathing, then we take a few moments to wish well our classmates, teachers and friends who aren’t able to join us that day.
This year we added an actual wishing well for people to write their own hopes and other things that they would like us to wish well during our morning meeting. It sends us off to start our day with caring, kindness and mindfulness.
Our first morning class choices for variety camp are hip hop, cooking with Ms. Patty, Minecraft and sports sampler. The dance students have been traveling to Electric Youth Dance each morning where they have been learning and practicing two full routines. Ms. Cheryl-Ann planned fun craft projects for the students each day as well! Ms. Patty and Mrs. Cain have been cooking up all kinds of yummy creations. The students have made salsa, s’more banana boats, english muffin pizzas, fruit salad, and banana oatmeal cookies - some of the students have already made them at home.
The Minecraft group has been working to build together on our school server. Mrs. Cameron-Muscente has created different challenges for the groups to face each day. The Sports Sampler group has been busy the entire time with a ton of different activities. They have playedkickball, dodgeball, four-square, baseball, basketball, foosball, as well as different fitness room activities.
We take a break for lunch and thestudentshaveanopportunityto share performances. Then it is on to the afternoon with gardening, West African drumming, arts and crafts, CHOMP, yoga and JUST DANCE. While we planned for the gardening group to be outside working on transplanting, weed cleanup, and some early harvest the weather did not cooperate.
We made some adjustments and using kid democracy, chose different activities each day, though we did walk through the garden and make some observations about why the fruits hadn’t ripened yet, we think that they miss the sun too! The West African Drumming group worked with Mrs. Cameron-Muscente to understand the cultural significance of drumming, as well as learning to drum themselves!
The arts and crafts group has made clay, painted their clay shapes, created salt and watercolor art, made yarn shapes and then ended the week making tissue paper flowers. CHOMP was another cooking class where the students learned about choosing healthy options in meal planning (CHOMP) they made homemade ranch dressing, fruit salsa with cinnamon chips, frozen yogurt bark, banana pancakes and pizza quesadillas.
The yoga and JUST DANCE group first slowed down their bodies and minds with some gentle yoga and meditation, then we cranked up the tunes and ended the class with some fun dance moves.
Our day closed with a quick share and then we boarded buses and headed home. Each and every day was fun filled and wonderful, we love summer camp! --Alisha Sawyer is the St. Albans City School director of school enrichment