Tag: preparing for camp

Top 5 Reasons to Pack According to the Packing List

Every year, Camps send out packing lists with suggestions of what and how much to pack.  It’s important to stick to the packing list, since the lists are normally catered to your specific camp! Camp Directors have been sending out these lists for years, and make sure to update them according to what they know works for their campers! Here are the Top 5 Reasons to pack according to the packing list!

5.) Space is limited at camp! While your child may have their own room, closet and bathroom at home, at camp they are going to have to share these spaces. Your child will be living in a bunk with several other campers, as well as  several counselors.

4.) Required Items vs. Optional Items! There are going to be some items that are absolutely required, and you don’t want to be leaving those out of your child’s trunks. Uniformed Camp logoed T-shirts for specific events during camp are usually required. Optional items are generally items that are provided by camp, but some campers prefer to bring their own equipment such as lacrosse helmets.

3.) You don’t want to over pack! You know how when you go on vacation, you always seem to have more things to put fit in your suitcase than when you arrived. Well the same thing happens at camp! You want to be sure to leave a little room in those camp trunks for the end of the summer, so all of their projects & souvenirs from trips can make it home safely.

2.) Labels, Labels, Labels! There are A LOT of kids at camp, and a lot kids bring very similar, if not the same items. This is why everything brought to camp MUST be labeled. We know that you don’t want your child to lose anything at camp and this is the best way to prevent that from happening.

1.) Check what items are not permitted in camp! You want to be sure your camper doesn’t bring any items that are not allowed in camp. Along with what to pack, your packing list normally will have a list of prohibited items that should not come to camp with your child.

Countdowns and Stuff

For the millions of youth who call summer camp home each summer, excitement begins to grow exponentially just after spring break each year. Not only is the end of another school year just around the corner, but the beginning of another camp season is oh so close that campers can practically smell the campfires. A variety of countdowns help them keep track of just how many sleeps are left until they’re back in their bunks or cabins and reunited with camp friends. Oh, of course there are the literal countdowns of exactly how many days, minutes, and hours are left that are featured on many summer camp apps and websites. But kids tend to be a bit more creative than website designers when it comes to countdowns and pre-camp rituals.

Parents may be a bit mystified, for example, when they’re handed a pillowcase, blanket, towel, etc. that campers have conveniently kept out of the laundry basket for the past several months because it “smells like camp.” For campers, this is just the release of one summer as part of the final preparation stages for the next. For parents, it’s a good reason not to send the good pillowcases to camp.

The amount of times the word camp finds its words into a conversation—and sometimes even a single sentence—steadily starts to rise again.  Maybe there is justsomething about seeing green, or maybe it’s the warmer days. Whatever the motivating factor, after a graduating dipping off during the coldest winter months, with the arrival of spring comes the re-integration of camp lingo into everyday speech. Parents need not become frustrated, children are usually happy to translate until someone gets around to writing that all important Camp Dictionary for Parents Who Want to Know What Their Campers Are Saying.

Some campers measure the time left until camp by the amount of episodes remaining before the season finale of their favorite television shows and then the number of weeknights they have to endure with nothing on television but reruns to watch until camp starts. Still, others prefer the exam approach and countdown their time until camp by the number of tests remaining in the school year. (Note: Some counselors use both of these approaches as well.)

Clever Apple users countdown with SIRI and hold daily conversations with her about camp. Others like to plan ahead even further into the summer by making out their Visiting Day snack lists, just in case they get too busy to do so after they get to camp. Countdowns are rarely a matter of just plain counting down when it comes to camp. Like camp itself, they’re full of ritual and meaning.

TWO. MORE. DAYS!

Time can sometimes be the biggest paradox.  Take the distance between the beginning and end of camp, for instance.  Even though it still seems like just yesterday we were welcoming the buses for the start of Summer 2012, it also seems like it has taken forever for this coming weekend to get here.  We’ve been counting the days since we said goodbye last summer and have spent the winter putting together the biggest and best Camp Weequahic summer ever!  And speaking of that time paradox…

Even though we’ve been here for a few weeks now, making a few tweaks to the campus as well as meeting and getting to know our staff while preparing them to meet our campers, the time has flown…until now.  Now that we’re down to those last TWO DAYS before the start of camp, it seems like the clock has stopped again.  We’re ready.  The staff is ready.  The campus is ready.  Now all we need is our campers!  And so we wait…We wish we had a magic button that we could  press that would speed up time to Saturday and then press it again to slow the summer down once all of our campers have arrived.

TWO. MORE. DAYS!