Around the World Camp(s)

More or less, my summer and winter camp schedule has settled into a pattern.  The first camp I had after my surgery was scheduled to be 3 weeks long, so as I like to came a camp "theme," I decided to have a travel themed camp.  So after planning and prepping for almost a month, students were not signing up for a three week camp, so my school made the last minute decision to cut camp to 2 weeks.

That meant I had to cut a week's worth of lessons from the schedule.  A blessing and a curse.  Blessing because 2 weeks is about all I can handle with all the stress of preparing, teaching, shopping, etc. for camp.  Curse because I already had a rough outline for 3 weeks.  Hakuna matata, though, I'll just bounce the extra week's plan into the next camp.


 The first camp was really successful and the next was halfway done, so it was a lot less stressful to plan and put together.  So, I was really excited to set up the third camp on this travel theme.  My next camp will be the fourth and final camp in the travel series.  Students also really seem to enjoy these camps.

Each camp is 10 days.  Day 1 we talk about rules and expectations for camp and then the different (visible) aspects of culture.  I also distribute books and "passports" for students to collect reward stamps.  I like to wrap up the first day by having students produce their own maps of the world describing how they see the world.  Some students know much more about the world than others, but this is a good way to see their pre-existing knowledge (so you aren't teaching down to students) and an excellent way to see their prejudices and world views.

Depending on class size, I reward the top 3-ish students in each class.  The final day is always a movie day and I reward the students for their good behavior by buying either pizza or breakfast for the class.

Generally, every day has a lecture/discussion part where we talk about the geography, history, flag, and famous people, places, and things in each country.  I make my own workbooks for this part. (I discovered that my students at this particular school prefer having a book.)  It's mostly gap-fills with some coloring parts and supplemented with youtube videos.  Then I usually talk a little more in-depth about one specific cultural aspect.  Finally, we wrap up camp with an arts and crafts activity that students can take home as a "souvenir" for their study.

Camp 1 (only 9 days/7countries because the New Year's holiday fell in the middle) included:
-Italy
-India
-Mexico
-Russia
-United Kingdom
-Egypt
-Sweden

Camp 2:
-Kenya
-Oceania/Polynesia
-Iran
-Thailand
-Greece
-Germany
-Brazil
-Netherlands

Camp 3:
-Australia
-Morocco
-Peru
-Vietnam
-Jamaica
-France
-South Africa
-Norway

Lesson plans coming soon!