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Hey all!

One thing that my camp has struggled with the past few summers is coming up with new evening activities that keep the campers involved, especially the older campers. We are a very traditional camp, and there are some activities that have been around for awhile, but even those seem to have lost their luster. We have talked about taking out some of the traditional activities, but that becomes a struggle as many campers actually look forward to them.

So, do any of you have some all camp type or large age group evening activties that we could try? Is there a traditional activity (Goldrush, Carnival, Olympics, MTV Night) that you do that you have adjusted to make better? Thanks in advance!

- Teenster

How often are you talking about?
We have all-camp activities in the evenings a few nights a week. Traditional activities like you mentioned, campfires, round robins of activities/games/crafts/etc...
One of the years I was assistant camp director, we had an occasional ad staff evening activity night. We made a rough schedule and sent it out to the units beforehand. Any ad staff member who wasn't on duty that night, or off, would lead an activity for anyone who wanted to participate. There was Capture the Flag one time, and kickball, and sidewalk chalk drawing, and floor hockey... And not a lot of kids showed up to all of them, but it was fun and gave them more options if there wasn't much in the unit's schedule that night.

I work at a traditional 8 week camp. So, I have the same girls all summer. Evening activties are required for all campers. We have a few all camp evening activities and then there are a few age group evening activities. We usually have an all camp evening activity once or twice a week.

- Teenster

One original all-camp game that I really liked was a large version of the game Pit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_(game)

The person who created our version made gigantic (about 3 ft by 1.5 ft or something like that) cards with images familiar to camp such as rock climbing, camp fires, etc. I don't remember if we teamed up by unit or by group but that would vary depending on the size of your units. It may have been made with multiple "decks" of the cards. So then the specialists were in the middle circle (a big circle made of rope on the ground) and the kids would each take turns going in to the middle and handing their card to a specialist who would go find another kid to just swap the first kid's card with. The idea is to get all the same type of card in your "hand."

I played it a few years ago and only once but the rules involved everyone taking a turn running it to the middle before someone could do it twice and probably other things I just forgot. But it's based off of the game from the wikipedia site. Not sure if it will let me post the link so I'll check to see after I post it and adjust as neeeded!

Looks interesting, I will put it on my list of games that could be played within a camp or age group.

We have about 450 campers at one time, they are split into two "camps." Then those are split into age groups. Each age group can have anywhere from 20 campers to 70 campers. So, I'm not sure if this game would work as an all camp activity, but it's definately something that we can use on a smaller scale. Thanks!

- Teenster

Here is a link to a bunch of camp games-- that can be adapted as an evening program--

http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/site/camp-activities/camp-games.html

Besides the traditional camp fire, you could have a movie under the stars night. Campers could grab a blanket and enjoy a movie in the fields. You could also arrange a game night where you have various minute to win it games and bunks compete against each other to see who can win the most games.

You're welcome Teenster!

Some of our most successful evening programs where holiday events.

Halloween was huge at our camp. Kids brough costumes to wear just for that one night. We also did a haunted trail that the older kids and support staff made for the younger kids. We just kept a close eye on it.

Thanksgiving - This was more of a dinner event done late in the year. If you have a camp garden you can use food from it to have in the dinner.

New Years - Everyone gets dressed up and we would have a dance. We would do a ball drop just before lights out.

We also had a great time with a block party the first full day of camp. We would go up to the sports area of camp. Set up the sound system for music and have tennis, basketball, soccer, and a home run derby. Add in ice cream and you have a great way for campers to break the ice with each other.

I really think the best events are ones the campers help run.