What a busy week we had at Elmwood! With so much going on in all our groups, it’s no wonder the week flew by. The magic of Elmwood is at its strongest as campers are continuing to treat each other with kindness and are truly feeling comfortable being themselves and around one another.
The second grade Tarplin games kicked off on Monday where every second-grade group participated in a two-day long event of fun and friendly games and activities against each other. It was exciting. It was challenging. It was full of kindness, sportsmanship and spirit!
Monday was also the beginning of our third-grade Camp Within a Camp program. This is always a camper favorite as it allows campers to choose an elective that they will be participating in all week. This year the different options were fencing, decathlon, terrarium making, create your own play and create your own board game.
Can you imagine spending 24 hours a day at Elmwood? On Tuesday, our fourth-grade campers had a taste of what that would look like as they departed on a fun overnight adventure to Camp Schodack. They had such a blast as they participated in swimming, boating, go karts and the camp ropes course.
We had some aspirational visitors on Thursday who joined us in our morning meeting and stayed throughout the day! At our all camp meeting, we found out that a bunch of friendly animals from the zoo escaped in hopes of fulfilling their lifelong dreams. We had ducks who hoped to be golfers, and we had a flamingo who wished to be a singer. We had narwhals who always wanted to be fencers and an elephant who dreamed of being an artist. There were penguins who imagined themselves as scientists, lions who desired to be gymnasts and a giraffe who longed to be a game show host. As they were escaping from the zoo and trying to figure out how they could peruse their dreams, they bumped into an ally-cat who showed them the way to Elmwood. He told them that Elmwood was a great place to be me and that they could achieve their dreams there!
Once the animals arrived at Elmwood, they practiced and played their long-desired aspirations all day! However, they were continuously on the lookout for three zookeepers (Sean, Morgan and Seth) who were trying to find them and bring them back to the zoo. With the help of our campers and counselors who helped distract the zookeepers, the animals were able to stay all day! At the end of the day at our second all camp meeting, the zookeepers realized that the animals should be allowed to follow their dreams and set them free.
Although Friday was Pajama Day, the day was anything but a snooze! Between K-Club, third-grade camp within a camp, a few end of club performances, pool dancing, Elmwood’s famous pizza and great weather for all of our activities, we ended the week at an all-time high!
Stepping Stones News:
There’s something really special about watching our three-year old campers being fully captivated by all of their activities. Tumbling at gymnastics, singing songs with Anne and swimming in the pool were just some activities that they enjoyed. However, their favorite seemed to have been making ice cream with Lisa at cooking!
While our four-year old campers continued practicing their gymnastics and gardening skills from last week, they enjoyed learning new skills in basketball and tee-ball. Dribbling, shooting, hitting and running bases were all exciting for them. They really loved going to Quest to experiment with colored dye. They finished their science activity with the coolest beads around- beads that change color in the sun! Now all of our four-year olds will know when it is sunny out and when to wear sunblock!
Our kindergarten campers got a taste of what Club is like this week! They had three days of K Club activities where they were able to choose between sports, volcanoes, cheerleading and gardening. When they were not at K Club, they were busy making animal faces out of plates, tissue paper and markers at Arts and Crafts, creating chemical reactions at Quest and playing tennis with Heather.
During our special event on Thursday, all of our stepping stones campers played with real life animals! The Nature of Things came to give our Stepping Stones their very own petting zoo. They touched a stick bug, a bunny rabbit, a hen and a lizard! They also all went on a fun tractor safari ride around the front of camp while they looked for hidden animals!
Lower Village News:
The whole first-grade had a birthday party this week! Opening up presents, hitting piñatas and eating birthday cupcakes made it the best birthday party ever. The icing on the cake (pun intended) were their visits from The Birthday Bunch! While the first-graders always enjoy running around and playing sports, they particularly enjoyed going to adventure park, playing tennis and going to gymnastics this week. On Thursday’s special event day, our first graders loved heading down to A&W to play capture the flag.
The Tarplin Games took over the beginning of the week for our second graders as they were busy participating in sports, games, activities and challenges. Although they were competing throughout the entire two-day event, the main fundamentals of the experience were to encourage sportsmanship, spirit, kindness and friendship. All who participated had a great time. Congratulations to the blue team who took home the championship!
Upper Village News:
All week the third-grade campers participated in Camp-within-a-Camp where they spent a full hour of each day participating in either fencing, decathlon, terrarium making, create your own play and create your own board game. It was inspiring to watch these campers grow and improve in each of these activities as the week went on. On Friday, everyone enjoyed watching those campers who had created their own play, which was creative, hilarious and full of talent!
The fourth grade definitely had the busiest week of them all! Between hikes, the overnight trip and the special event, our fourth-grade campers will sleep soundly this weekend! Their trip to Camp Schodack was blast as they rode in go-carts, went boating, had a campfire where they sang songs and made s’mores, and participated in a variety of camp activities. During Thursday’s special event, the fourth-graders enjoyed playing mini-golf, creating pendulum art, and participating in a game show!
Seniors:
The seniors finished up their majors this week which were woodworking, sports and comedy imrpov. In woodworking, seniors built full-sized plank chairs. The seniors at sports competed in an intense sports tournament where the Soccer Skins played the Crushers. They all had a blast playing against their friends. The Crushers won the tournament! As the week went on, campers who participated in the comedy improv really opened up as they became more comfortable getting on stage. On Friday, the comedy improv campers performed in front of the whole group. All campers also enjoyed their minors which were yoga, golf and art. On Wednesday, the seniors left camp for the day to go to the Intrepid!