As summer neared it became clear that the pandemic would preclude holding Greenbelt Recreation’s traditional in-person day camps. A creative response was needed – and fast. Fortunately, creativity is what Creative Kids Camp is all about, and the camp’s motto, Unlimited Positive Energy, was precisely what was needed to create an enchanting camp experience, delivered directly to participants’ homes.
In consultation with parents, camp planners crafted a winning format. The ingredients for this recipe are: an activity bag, chock-full of art supplies and project templates, which are keyed to custom-made instructional videos and activity sheets created by the camp staff.
Every morning, parents receive an email containing links to the day’s videos and activity sheets, which cover music, dance, puppetry and visual art, along with occasional specialty videos such as making cold-pack pickles. The videos are brief and engaging, designed to teach the campers an activity they can do for an extended time off-line, away from the screen.
“Our objective was to create a format that both maximized off-screen engagement time for the campers and empowered the parents to schedule camp activities and viewing time to suit their family’s schedule,” said camp coordinator Chris Cherry. “Based on the positive responses we have received, the format has definitely been a success.”
The camp provides opportunities for interaction as well, via half-hour Zoom sessions three times per week, during which campers engage in small groups with teachers, their camp counselors and each other. “Many elementary school children were overwhelmed by the frequency, length and sheer number of participants in the Zoom sessions they experienced when the schools had to pivot suddenly to online learning this spring,” Cherry noted. “Parents helped steer us toward smaller, less frequent and shorter Zoom sessions for camps for this age group.”
One popular interaction opportunity is the camp’s Tales-2-Tails program, in which campers can sign up for one-on-one Zoom sessions to read aloud to a camp staffer’s dog. Modelled on the successful Read To Rover program hosted on-site by the Library, this virtual version connects young readers to a furry listener and an encouraging staffer.
“In addition to providing fun social interaction and good reading practice, we hope that the Tales-2-Tails sessions, along with the camper group Zooms, will help our campers return to virtual learning this fall with a greater degree of confidence and comfort with online platforms,” said Cherry.
Creative Kids Camp is known for its summer shows, and unlimited positive energy helped devise a way to create charming group performances by combining the campers’ individual efforts, recorded in their respective homes. Parents have served as camera operators and sound engineers, recording their campers’ song and dance performances and forwarding the solo videos to the Batni brothers, Ananth and Shesh, who have mixed and edited them into fully-fledged group music videos. The camp has produced a music video each week.
The theme of the music videos is Memory Quest in Central Park, with the campers making a virtual visit to a new attraction in the park every week. Coached by music teachers Ananth Batni and Amanda Ferguson, along with dance teacher Elta Goldstein, the campers have sung and danced about fun park destinations such as Belvedere Castle, the sailboat pond and the carousel.
The music videos feature the campers’ visual artwork as well. Art teacher Amanda Larsen uses photos embellished by the campers to create animation sequences that are incorporated into several of the videos. In other videos, the campers wear costume items they have made or play homemade instruments.
Story making is another popular activity, including puppetry with handmade puppets. Story Alive teachers Eva McNabb and Adam Campanile have helped the campers craft stories, puppets, backdrops and sets, so that campers can present their own puppet plays for each other via Zoom.
In keeping with the Memory Quest theme, campers in Session Three participated in a sequential outdoor project, recreating a film shoot from the documentary The City. The Greenbelt segments of the famous documentary were filmed in August 1938, featuring residents of the town, including many children. Last week, Creative Kids Camp families signed up for half-hour appointments so that campers could ride their bikes through the underpass next to the Greenbelt Museum’s historic house, while the cameras rolled.
“Seeing the new images juxtaposed with the images from 1938, all accompanied by the music Aaron Copland composed specifically for Greenbelt, reminds us that Greenbelt itself was a creative response to a national crisis,” Cherry said. “That creative spirit, energy, drive and commitment to community solutions still animate Greenbelt today. We have the creative ability, the resilience, the commitment and the resources to adapt to changing circumstances, while preserving the connections that are vital to our children and our community.”