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My current camp works on a scheduled day. We divide the day into 9 45 minute periods and then an afternoon snack (the parents pick up their children at this time) I should note that we are a day camp.

I've been at this camp for 10 years now and am sick of the typical block schedule program. We have 4 days (A day through D day). If Monday is an A Day, Friday will also be an A day. The next week Monday is a B day, Friday will also be a B day. On Fridays we have a shortened schedule and do an afternoon show.

What I am trying to get at is does anyone have any ideas on how to switch things up? Sure I can play 50 different games on the basketball court but I'm thinking of something on a bigger scale.

I heard of a program where the counselors had specialties and kids of any gender/age would be able to sign up and spend an afternoon doing something interesting to them.

Even if you have any ideas for me to do just as a group instead of the whole camp, that works as well.

Thank you!

Yeah you can definitely make the children do different activities each day. But what i am confused about is, what do mean by A day and B day?

I realize this is extremely over due but nothing changed last summer so I will give it a go with trying to explain A day and B day.

Our camp session is 39 days. 8 weeks, with one day being off for 4th of July.

week one - monday is A day, tuesday B day, wednesday C day, Thursday D day, friday A day.
week two - monday b day, tuesday c day, thursday a day, friday b day
and so on.

we have a different schedule each day. so say on A day mornings i may have basketball, swim, soccer, arts and crafts and then lunch. on a B day morning i may have softball, swim, hockey, tennis and then lunch. its just the different schedules we follow each day.

The pros to this schedule is that say a camper is only signed up for Monday, Wednesday Friday or even just Tuesday and Thursday, the rotation of days each week gives them the opportunity to do everything at some point.

we have three things that stay the same everyday, our morning swim, lunch and afternoon swim. they are always the same times each day..

I'm thinking having swim sessions be combined maybe once a week say on a thursday or even on a D day (this allows the special activities to rotate so all children no matter how they are signed up will be able to participate). This would be able to give the campers One period a week to "choose" what they want to do.

Any thoughts on that?

It sounds like you're stuck in a rut that a lot of camps find themselves in, especially for those with campers and staff who return year after year. I have a couple of thoughts:

- To what you suggested about combining swim sessions, we do that sometimes. It's one of the easier activities to make bigger, and you can generally combine skill levels and do a "pool party" type thing. We also sometimes do this with court/field games activities. You can even combine oldest campers with youngest and have the oldest help instruct youngest. Sometimes, we do an "oldest cabin vs. counselors" meet/activity, and the kids really like that, but you need to be sure to include the younger campers in some way, too.

- Guest instructors. We've sometimes had people come in a teach a special activity or do a presentation of some sort. You could invite a yoga or dance or hula hoop or whatever kind of teacher in for a day to teach small group and/or whole camp activities.

- As to whole camp activities, try theme days every once in a while. Maybe you decide that every Wednesday will be a theme day, and you can either incorporate the theme into regular activities or do all-camp programming for all or most of the day. Examples include marshmallow olympics and jello olympics, days that celebrate a certain person or historical figure (Paul Bunyan day), cultural celebration (each group represents a country, religion, time period, etc.), a "field day" between teams or age groups, etc. Also, encourage your staff to be thinking up activities throughout the year. They're probably seeing a lot of really great ideas at college or wherever else they are, and just need a little bit of encouragement to take some initiative and see how to implement those or similar ideas at camp.