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Hi, I'm an experienced Girl Scout Camp Counselor. I run the older girl/leadership programs at my camp. I was wondering what a typical day was at girl scout camps, and what interesting traditions you do. These cna be staff or camper traditions.

hey there, I'm from a girl scout camp!!!

our traditions-

* Pushing the director in the pool- preferably fully dressed

* Curly's Pizza (she was our cook)

* Candle Ceremony on the last night of camp

* The Half Past Eight Song

* singing tree

* camp names

* Hugs 'n Handshakes before bed

* Staff ties

* nutty buddies (secret pals)

Gosh, there are so many and I know I'm forgetting a lot... anyways.

a typical day in the life of a girl scout camper:

6 AM- wake up for polar swim
7 AM- regular wake up
8 AM- breakfast
9 AM- first activity
10:30 AM- second activity
12:00 PM- lunch
1:00 PM- me time (down time in cabins)
2:00- 3:00 PM- depending on age, me time
ends. younger campers have
shorter me times. 3rd activity.
4:30 PM- 4th activity
6:00 PM- dinner
7:00 PM- all camp activity
8:30-10:00 PM- bedtime, depends on age

ok, so an activity can be anything from archery to canoeing to bouldering to whatever else the camp offers, except horsebackriding (restricted to horse campers only). Campers go to all activities with their unit, and stay in their unit groups all day except for meals and all-camps.

evening activities are all-camp games, campfires, story-telling, dances, midevil carnivals, etc....

I'm from a GS camp in Northern VA... there really is no typical day, as each unit does different things each day. There are some things everyone does - like a flag ceremony before breakfast and before dinner, swimming every day, unit kapers every day, arts and crafts normally twice a week. But it's up to each unit's counselors to plan each day, so it varies a lot.

Traditions include...

Hikes to the Pooh Tree. We're supposed to take every camper there, sometimes with the older campers or the horseback campers, it doesn't happen 'cuz their schedule is too full. The Pooh Tree is a big hollow sycamore tree down by the Potomac River, it's one of my favorite spots in camp.

Opening campfire at Ashgrove - a big blazing fire, a Tajar story, and lots of songs. Oh, and Potomac Line, a song where each unit's counselors writes a new verse each week, introducing themselves and their program. These can range from very last-minute thrown together versions of camp songs, to very witty and clever pop songs with different words. My personal favorite this summer was my version to "Sk8r boi" by Avril, but we sang "She was a Pathfinder" It was so funny.

Thursday Night Cookouts - and the popularity of 4 to 6 twos on Thursdays!

Weekend trip to DC, Tyson's Corner Mall (always right after payday!), and a tubing trip.

Campapalooza!!! This is one of my favorites! It's an All-Camp activity, where counselors form groups and lip-sync to pop songs - dress up like the performers and everything. In the past, I've been Britney Spears, Joey from N*Sync, Brandy, and Hilary Duff. It's so much fun - you spend your breaks coming up with choreography, and then the whole camp watches this huge concert. It's so silly. The kids get REALLY excited about it - they know it's just their counselors up there, but they're still screaming and trying to touch you and everything. It's great!

what are the words to half past eight? we sang it last year and I can't remember it all.

Here's how "Half past Eight" goes at my camp - I would imagine it varies from camp to camp, as most songs do... Oh! And it must ONLY be sung at half past eight in the morning... any other time and you're not allowed!!! And you must have a bad, loud, slightly British but BAD British accent.

Every morning at half past eight I go ooey ooey ooey to Georgie,
And every morning at half past eight he goes ooey ooey ooey to me.
No need to knock, no need to call, but as I rub my eyes...
I open the window, pop out my head and go ooey ooey ooey to Georgie.

Every morning at half past eight I go ooey ooey ooey to Georgie,
And every morning at half past eight he goes ooey ooey ooey to me.
No need to knock, no need to call, but as I rub my eyes...
I open the window, pop out my head, down goes the window, off rolls my head,
And ewie ewie ewie goes Georgie.

since we run about 5-7 seperate units each week for 6 weeks we get to decide our own schedule each week which is nice but here is what its based upon.

7:00-7:20~ wakeup (each unit gets to pick)
7:50~flag
8:00~ breakfast
8:45-9:15~kapers yay! for cleaning
9:30-12:15~program
12:30~lunch
afternoons and evenings are chosen by unit
1:30-2:30~rest hour
2:30-3:30~camp activity
4:00-6:00~ swim/boat
6:30~dinner
7:30-9:00~activity
9:00-10:30~bed (chosen by counselors)

the camp activities are ropes course, arts&crafts,playfield games, nature, gymnastics, hikes... really whatever!

night activities are chosen and can be anything.. dance party, movie night, stargazing, night games on playfield, twilght swim, trash bash, talent show, comando raids... mon and fri nights are all camp campfires

other things that are special are thursday afternoons after lunch is all camp! after lunch is all camp rest hour and then an all camp activity- hoover auctions, counselor hunt, human croquet, gold rush, harry potter with a quiddich game!, bingo, water olympics... then there is cookout dinner. each unit goes back and cooksout dinner

also each unit has to do at least one other cookout each week besides the thursday dinner.

also you can pick to do a polar bear swim or camp out

when the girls come to camp they sign up for a program- gymnastics, arts&crafts, performing arts, horseback riding, photography, sailing, waterfront, canoeing, hiking.... and in the morning they do this activity and then the afternoon and evening is the whole unit together.
units are grouped by age and program and have between 20-40 girls with 5-7 staff.

older girl speciality programs are run differently.. we have 3 and they are two weeks. 1st week is at camp and 2nd week is either on hiking on the appalachian trail or canoeing on the deleware river and the week they are at camp they don't really follow the above schedule.. they cookout a lot more and don't follow the program hours.

Ha ha, our half past eight song is pretty much the same, except with Charley instead of Georgie.
We have a lot of similar traditions, with camp names, secret buddies, polar bear swims, etc. One fun tradition at swim time is the counselor's only swim. It takes place for about 5 minutes during swim time... the campers enjoy it because they count down for us and then we have a cannonball contest. Then, we all sing the "baby shark" song while we swim.
Our typical schedule is something like this:
6:30- Wake up girls for polar bear swim
7:00- Polar bear swim, wake up other girls sometime around here, depending on how slow they are!
8:00- Breakfast
9:00- Flag Raising
9:15- All camp and unit kapers
10:00- Morning activities- determined by unit
12:00- Lunch
1:00- Me-time
2:00- Afternoon activities
6:00- Dinner
7:00- Evening Activities
8:30-10:00- Snack, girls go to bed depending on age.

This is just the basic daily schedule. Activities during each day range from hiking to arts and crafts to swimming and showering. Thursdays (or the day before a session ends) are mostly taken by all-camp activities. The girls cook out lunch, followed by an all-camp then an all-camp swim. All of the weeks have a theme, and the activity relates to the theme (a dance during princess week, counselor hunt during jungle week, mini color war during patriotic week...) Thursday evenings are the closing campfires with songs and skits.

Another camp I worked at had all-camp activities on Monday nights and Thursday nights, with a closing campfire following on Thursday. Girls competed in a Cook-out Competition on Wednesday nights, where they picked a theme and planned their dinner around it, including costumes and decorations. Admin. staff were the judges and the winner was announced the next morning. I really liked that tradition and was sad to leave it.

p.s. I love it that Winacka still does Hugs and Handshakes... I remember that from when I was a camper there, and did it with my girls this summer - but it never really caught on with the other counselors in my unit, so it was just a special Buttons-bedtime thing.

Hello! I love hearing about everyone else's Girl Scout traditions. I work at Camp Cleawox in Oregone...beautiful beautiful place!

a typical day for us:
6:30a- wake up campers for polarbear swims, dawn drifting, sunrise painting , or yawning yoga
7a morning activities
7:45a flag
8a breakfast
9a kapers
10a program
11:15 program
12:30 lunch
1:30 me time
2:30 program
3:45 program
4:45 program
5:45 flag
6 dinner
7 evening activity
8 evening activity
9-10 bed!

Like most other camps, the program time can be filled with a&c, nature, hiking, swimming, archery, canoeing, funyakking, horseback riding, or any specialty programming. After dinner programming can be specific to the unit or a camp wide event. The EARLY morning activities are just what they sound like (dawn drifting -canoeing).

Some of our traditions are:
1.camp names for staff- we sing a song at the very end of camp so that the campers can learn our names
2. opening campfire and closing campfire
3. telling tager stories!
4. tager mail- campers can write mail to tager and he will write them back while they are at camp
5. Knights of the Sand Dunes- this is the BEST! To become a knight of the sand dunes you have to be able to swim across the lake to the sand dunes and back ( approx 100+ yds each way. Before you can do this, you first have to prove you can swim a certain number of laps with in the swim dock. One can also become a supreme knight of the sand dunes, a grand exalted kight,or an amazon warrior woman. Kids try so hard to get their laps in so that on Thursday afternoon they can swim across the lake in hopes of becoming a knight.
6. Banquet lunch- last lunch of camp where all campers recieve awards, patches, and are knighted.
7. Knighting ceremony- All the water front staff dress up in togas with candles and the " ancient" paddle of the Cleawox. The campers who became knights are called up, given candles, have their candles kit, then knighted with the ancient paddle. It's all very solomn and it takes all we have not to busrt out laughing!
8. Hugs, handshakes, or high fives- we let the kids pick what they want when we put them to bed. Most take hugs!

yeah, buttons... i love hugs n handshakes! both giving them and recieving them as a camper! I am so glad they have stuck around.

P.S.- when were you staff at winacka?

We never really did the hugs/hanshake/hi-five thing when I was younger, but someone told me about it and that they did it. I wasn't exactly sure how to introduce it to the campers/others though. I tried it a couple of times, but it didn't go like I thought it would although I would like to try it again even though I'm not sure if anyone will pick up on it. Any suggestions on how to introduce it to campers who aren't use to this type of thing being done at camp?

wow, i'm honestly not too sure how to do that! it's been a long standing tradition at my camp, so I've never had to deal with introducing it. I imagine that I would talk to the director who could then talk to the staff to make it a camp-wide thing, with all staff knowing it was expected that every one of them do it with their cabins... and then once the staff is all in on it, the girls shouldn't be too hard... on the first night of camp at bedtime, tell them all to hurry up and get into bed and then you will all come aorund with hugs and handshakes... and a camper will inevitably ask what that is, and you can explain it to them like it's a natural, accepted, long-standing concept and they probably will accept that. and from then on it would be normal to have it every night.

ok wow there is probably a better way i could've said that, a not-so-long-winded-way, but oh well.

When I have done it with my girls, I've done it as the director when I have been supervising other counselors tents, the counselors dont do it with their girls apparently... but anyway, I do hugs and highfives. what I do, is I tell the girls that I'm going to come aournd to each of them and they can have a hug or a highfive, none or both. when I walk over to each of them, I spend a few minutes with each of them so we can talk about the best part of their day then I'll say, "Do you want a hug or a highfive" it is really simple. when I first started, I thought it would be awkward for the girls. but it really isnt, you find out that most of them want a hug before tehy go to bed, and it really makes them feel happy!
Wilderness Mama.... what is the half past 8 song?
hope I helped!
Jiff

I was never staff at Winacka - I was a camper there the summers after third and fourth grade - must have been like 1991 and 1992? I've looked into going back there as staff, but it hasn't happened yet - it's definitely a possibility for future summers though! I'm just too far from SoCal right now for it to really work.

Hey HB!

It's Mouse! How's life? Say hi to people for me. How's the boy? You know what my camp traditions are..heehee..

argh, sorry, i've been trying to post and i have decided that computers hate me. either that, or this system hates me. either way...

anyways- Jiff, the half past eight song is.. well, um... a song??? lol, duh. It's a song we sing and it can be sung to any member of camp, just plug in their name. other camps have different variations, but this is ours:

Every morning at half past eight
we go eh-eh-eh-eh to whoever
and every morning at half past eight
she goes eh-eh-eh-eh to me!
no time to knock *pounds on the table*
no time to buzz, BUZZ *buzz your nose...
as I open up my eyes I throw up the window, pop out my head
and go eh-eh-eh-eh to whoever
Good morning, whoever!

and then they go, good morning camp winacka!!!!

so yes, that's our song... it's a good time.

and hey, buttons- whoops! i'd got the impression you were staff there! my bad... but hey, we were campers about the same time (ish). lol

Thanks for the suggestions - I think I will try t hugs/high-fives again this summer and see how it goes.

I am from a GS camp in New York. We have many traditions, we have opening and closing campfires, with a "friendship" path at the end of the closing, where all of the counselors get a candle and line a path through the woods. On birthdays we give cake/ice cream to the person and they have to run around the dinning hall. We put up the flag before breakfast and take it down before dinner. There is more but I cannot remember them right now.

Hey Wilderness Mama,

How long have you been a counselor? And I was wondering if that is your counselor name or just a screen name? I remember the hugs and handshakes thing since when I first was a camper at Winacka. Its awesome.

camp names mine is Rainbow.
Gosh, there are so many and I know I'm forgetting a lot... anyways.

a typical day in the life of a girl scout camper:

Basic unit in camp there weekly schedule of activities will include every a daily flag ceremony 9:30 am and 3:00 and swimming daily. Once during the week archery, arts & crafts, canoing, nature hut. performing arts.

Also thre is Thursday Evening Campfire for an additional fee. This inclues Dinner and snack are included, along with games, activities and time in the pool (weather-permitting).

Overnight programs are offered to Summer Day Camp participants who are entering the fourth grade and older. The fee includes Thursday dinner, evening snack, Friday breakfast, lunch and snack. Cookout, games, pool time and singing around the campfire are part of this sleepover experience.

All activities are supervised by Camp Sacajawea staff who reside in-unit, overnight, with the campers. If you attend Day Camp during a week in which there is no overnight scheduled, you are invited to choose one of the above dates and join us at a later time.

Band Camp New This year!! Junior and older.
Band Camp is designed for those who already play an instrument to learn more about music and working together. During their week of Band Camp we will learn new music as a group, ?break down? music, performance etiquette - be part of a concert. This is the first all girl, all Girl Scout Band Camp!

Concert Music
Focus on concert music and perform in our first annual all girl musical concert at Camp Sacajawea.

Marching Band Basics
During our second week of musical extravaganza you will be involved in learning music and begin marching techniques ? yes, while playing. At the end of the week our girls will march in our first All Girl Pre-July 4th Parade in Camp Sacajawea.

Revised Houseback Riding program.

New! Introduction to Horseback Riding for Brownie Girl Scouts
Horse Fan Available at at off site stables and evently at Camp Sacajawea?s stables for girls entering 4th grade and up for weekly morning sessions; girls will participate in day camp activities during the afternoon session.

Horse Sense Available for all girls who have completed Horse Fun or have completed both the Horse Fan and Horse Rider Badges and are entering 4th grade and up. Horse Sense is available in the afternoon sessions and girls will participate in day camp activities during the morning session.

Instructional Programs

Camp Sacajawea Summer Day Camp offers special programs on a weekly basis for an additional charge. Each instructional program is designed to be progressive. As campers reach specific levels, they receive awards or certificates of skill recognition. An experienced specialist staffs each program area. Please note that swim, canoe and archery are offered as a program area during the regular Day Camp week. Instructional programs are offered simultaneously, therefore limiting a camper to only one instructional program per week. Capacity is limited.

Instructional Swim (1st through 7th grade) Instructional Canoe (4th through High School)
Instructional Archery (4th through High School)

Older girl specility units
American Red Cross Guard Start Pre-Lifeguard Training

New This summer!!! Boating And Beyond & Equestrian Adventure & Camp Aid as an whole week of camp not just as weekend of training at beginging of June.

Beyond Camp Sacajawea ? Teen Travel
International travel opportunities Ireland, Switzerland
National travel opportunities Sailing at Annapolis Maryland, Amusement Park Tour, Southern Adventure in Savannah, Georgia

*BUMP* I know quite a few on this board work at GS camps so what's going on???

Yay for Girl Scout camp!

A typical day... ummm, there isn't really one.

We do a really cool camp fire on Thursday nights. All of the units get involved and have something to so the rest of the camp.

Everything at my camp is based on the individual units, we have a set time we do meals, and flag. Then everything else is scheduled with the unit. This is great because it helps with Girl Planning, and the campers love it.

- Teenster