Tag: summer camp activities

Woodshop Projects You Can Use

Screen Shot 2015-10-26 at 2.50.36 PMWe were thrilled to open a new Woodshop studio this past summer, our fourth (and final) move for this ever-popular activity. Walking into the Shop, guests will find it always busy and full of campers working on projects that are both appropriate for their skill level and useful in their daily lives.

Many of the projects we built this year come from projects we see around us. The iPod speaker is just that. Given as a gift to one of our full time team members over the winter, we thought it would be a fun project to try at camp. The kids jumped right in because they actually use it back home right away. And, it works!

Another fun and useful project was our travel stool. Last summer, one of our campers from Russia built a great stool all on his own. In researching the cost to send it back to Moscow, we found it prohibitively high. (Don’t worry – we are still using the stool today!)

Our head of Creativity developed our travel stool, a project that would allow girls and boys the chance to build something they could use back home but also pack in any bag. Dozens of these projects were created and painted to their builder’s own plans.

Lastly, our staff helped the campers use the wood from our surrounding forests to come up with winter holiday ornaments. These little reindeer will be great additions to many homes this winter.

We are proud of our girls and boys who use their hands, imaginations, and many tools they don’t often see to create useful projects. Come to the Shop and give it a try yourself next summer!

Top Chef Recipe – Triple Threat Brownies

If you like a good, gooey brownie, this may be for you. While our campers enjoy cooking all types of meals in Top Chef, these brownies have certainly become a camper (and camp director) favorite. Give them a try at your home but be careful – they are addictive!

Triple Threat Brownies

Ingredients for the Chocolate Chip Layer

  • 1 cup of butter
  • 1 cup of white sugar
  • 1 cup of brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 3 cups of flower
  • 1 tsp of baking soda
  • 2 tsp of hot water
  • ½ tsp of kosher salt
  • 2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips

Ingredients for the Marshmellow or Oreo Layer

  • 10 marshmellows or 10 oreos

Ingredients for the Brownie layer:

  • ½ cup of butter
  • 1 cup of sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp of Vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup of cocoa powder
  • ½ cup flour
  • ¼ tsp kosher salt
  • ¼ tsp baking powder

Directions

Chocolate Chip Cookie Layer:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
  2. Cream together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Add the

eggs one by one and stir in the vanilla.

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add to the batter with salt. Finally

add the flour and chocolate chips.

  1. Spread the batter on an 8”x8” brownie pan or pyrex dish*

Marshmallow or Oreo Layer:

Cut the marshmallows or Oreos in half and push over the cookie batter.

Brownie Layer:

  1. Cream the butter with the sugar and add the egg.
  2. Mix all the dry ingredients together and add to the batter.
  3. Spread on top of the cookie marshmallow.
  4. Bake all together at 350 F degrees for 40-45 minutes.

*This recipe can also be made in muffin tins. You’ll need to cut down the cooking time, though!

Birthdays at Camp Weequahic

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 12.35.45 PMWhat could be better than celebrating your birthday with your closest friends and amazing mentors? Campers and staff whose birthdays fall during their stay at Camp Weequahic have an amazing day from start to finish.

The day starts with a phone call home. Parents simply need to call our office to set up a time to speak with their camper at a time convenient for both which is normally at breakfast. Plus, it starts everyone’s day off with smiles.

At breakfast, our birthday camper gets the safety neon green birthday shirt to wear in addition to a sharpie for their friends to sign the shirt. Following breakfast and morning clean up (which everyone has to do, whether it’s your birthday or not), our birthday people get to come forward and raise the flag at the end of our morning meeting.

The birthday celebrations come to a crescendo at dinner and evening meeting. Near the end of dinner, our birthday friend is invited forward to stand on a chair in front of the entire camp. Director Cole leads them through some fun questions and then helps direct a camp-wide rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ while a homemade birthday cake is presented, candles and all.

Once the cake has been shared with our birthday camper’s bunkmates, everyone heads to Free Play and our evening Flagpole. This is when things get a little goofy. With the entire camp cheering them on, our birthday friends are challenged to catch a frosted cupcake… that is launched about 100’ in the air with a slingshot! Everyone gets three attempts and, if desired, can call on friends to help.

It’s a wonderful thing to have a birthday at camp. We do our best to help each birthday person enjoy a number of fun (and delicious) memories!