Summer Camp Update

Summer Camp Update
By Christina Allen, Director of Education

[click this post to read it in its entirety]

I’m excited to report that the first three weeks of Summer Camp have gone extremely well. We are blessed to have a wonderful staff that truly enjoys working with our children. We have:

  • Hannah Boutwell working with the (upcoming) kindergarten and first grade students
  • Blake Scheidt with the second and third grade students
  • Eina Dorado leading the fourth-eighth grade girls
  • Ben Turner working with the 4-8 grade boys

Each classroom has 8-10 students, bringing the total number of children enrolled in Summer Camp to an all-time high of 38!

This summer we are using recently purchased reading curriculum from Global Learning called Litart Reading. I am very pleased with the curriculum overall, and the teachers are doing well implementing it.

Krystal Lockhart from the Polk Museum of Art provides a very engaging group of projects for the art camp portion of our day. So far she has led the children in projects such as ceramics, book making and painting. The kids are thoroughly enjoying their creations.

Fridays are our “fun” days. Each week we take either the K-3 or the 4-8 grade students on a field trip, while the group that does not go enjoys something fun at camp. Week One the younger kids had Splash Day while the older group went to Gandy Pool.  Last week the younger kids had movie and popcorn day and the older kids went bowling. This week the younger kids are swimming at Gandy Pool and the older kids will have movie and popcorn day.

Covenant High School Group
For two weeks a group of 15 high school students from Covenant Presbyterian came to Parker Street to help out. Half of the group worked at Summer Camp, while the other half worked on projects in the neighborhood. These students were extremely helpful, and several expressed interest in volunteering on an individual basis!

Finally, I would like to share a few highlights from the classrooms:

Kindergarten/First: Antonio is a Spanish-speaking student beginning kindergarten this fall. He came to our Summer Camp with no letter/sound knowledge. After three days of working with Letter Factory, a learning video that we use, he mastered nearly all of his letter sounds. Also, three of our students in this class have learned how to tie their shoes!

Second/Third: Tyrell, a third time kindergarten repeater, was unable to count to ten and unable to add.  He is beginning to add facts and can now count to 20! (With help from some stellar volunteers, we have been able to provide two full hours of one-on-one tutoring with him each day!)

Fourth-Eighth girls: Eina has been using a curriculum called “The Young Peacemaker” with her girls. She has noticed a great response to the material related to conflict resolution and is excited to see her girls put it into action. Eina has also seen progress in her students’ abilities to take responsibility for their actions!

Fourth-Eighth boys: Marquis (an upcoming ninth-grader) came to Ben on his own and told him that he has been thinking a lot about staying in our neighborhood to help PSM and also with our future church plant.  Ben suggested that Marquis begin a Bible study with Ben so that they could study together and with a few others so he can begin training as a future leader. Marquis became excited about the idea, and Ben and Marquis hope to start next week.

Thank you for all of your support of our ministry. We are seeing God work in marvelous ways in our neighborhood and in the hearts of our neighbors. Thank you for helping us make this a successful summer!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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