Our Kids Blog

An Introduction to Overnight Camp

Growing up, many of my friends attended day camps (usually soccer camps to improve our skills at the game we all loved) but few went to overnight or residential camps. Why? I suppose because their parents never went.

I was lucky because my best friend attended an overnight camp and raved about it. My parents, being new to Canada, wanted to integrate us as quickly as possible, and agreed to send me. I loved it, and that’s why I think the newly announced partnership between Camp Tamakwa (an overnight camp) and Adventure Valley Day Camp is a great way to introduce day campers to the overnight camp adventure.

Beginning this summer, Camp Tamakwa will host a group of eager young campers from the Toronto day camp for 4 very special days in August. Day camp staff will come up to Camp Tamakwa’s Algonquin Park camp with a select group of campers, ensuring the transition is comfortable and easy for young kids. It’s a new step in providing new Toronto area campers a few days at Tamakwa combining the best of both day and overing camps for them this summer and for summers to come.

Do you send you child to a day camp? Have you thought about an overnight camp experience? Would you consider a short overnight stay with campers and staff your child is already comfortable with?

FIND AN OVERNIGHT CAMP |          FIND A DAY CAMP

Tags: Camp, camp tamakwa, day camp, overnight camp, summer camp, Toronto

Shutting Up And Listening

A while ago, I was reading the New York Times arts section and I came across something amazing. A write up of a play preformed by a cast of young adults that sounded fascinating, vibrant and wonderful called Once and For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen (yes, it’s a mouthful). I immediately thought “I must see this show!” but it was showing in New York and closing on that Sunday and I was going to have to miss it. Then in what I guessed was to be a futile attempt, I searched the play’s title and Toronto on Google and then HARK it was coming to Toronto in a month for its final run at the Harborfront. Well, I made it out and saw it and I wanted to post some thoughts.

The show is like nothing you’ve seen. From when you get into the theater and are handed a pin showing a hand giving the middle finger to when the lights go up, it is a surprising and enlightening experience. The play is basically a series of variations on one scene, recess and one question what happens when kids are free to play featuring a chorus line of adolescents. After the first time we see this scene, it is repeated again and again with the addition of various elements: sex, drugs, absence, ballet, anger, fulfillment. It has a fierce energy featuring a pumping soundtrack (the theater literally shook).

The day after I saw the play I was eating lunch at my school when I saw two kids fiercely dancing around with a leopard skin blanket. I smiled and thought back to a scene in the play where the same thing pretty much happened and I thought “for better or for worse, this show got it. This IS what its like. Down to the last detail. Everything is invoked” It was worth shutting up and listening for what I learned from (finally) seeing a truthful representation of adolescence.

Tags: absence, anger, art, ballet, drugs, fulfillment, New York, private school, school, sex, theatre, Toronto

Preparing for Summer Camp – CTV Montreal Interview

Summer camps are filling up quickly and it’s that time of year to begin thinking about camp for your kids. Not sure if your child is old enough? Where to start your search? or what camp your teen would love? CTV Monteal recently did an interview with Jacqui Raill, Camp Director of Camp Ouareau in Quebec about these top parental concerns.  Tune in today at noon (Monday February 8, 2010, 12:00 noon) online at www.ctvmontreal.ca and watch the short interview.

We’ve also got lots of great tips and tools for preparing your child for camp in our Camp Advice Guide, or visit the Camps.ca Community and ask one of our experts!

Lakefield College School Alumni Teaches Kids How To Travel

SUBMITTED BY:  EVAN HADFIELD. LAKEFIELD COLLEGE SCHOOL ALUMNI AND FOUNDER OF BIG BROTHER BACKPACKING.

When I was a student at Lakefield College School , I was a dreamer. I would spend my days dreaming about anything and everything — the future, the arrival of summer, the girl sitting next to met in math class, but most of all, traveling. I effectively spent a majority of my time thinking about how I wanted my life, and my education, to work for me and allow me the future I desired. I wanted to see every country, take in every sunset, and climb every mountain. I wanted to have the whole world feel my feet — not on some all-expenses vacation, and not under the wheels of a tour bus. I wanted to do it, and I wanted the world to open up to allow it for me.

The thing with dreams, however, is that they’re generally yours and yours alone. No matter how much I searched during high school, I never found a way to actually learn from traveling. Every company I found tried to offer the cheapest and least educational opportunities. I found hundreds of companies offering tour buses that only stopped at ‘postcard’ sites. I found many opportunities to go on exchange and live in another country, thereby attempting to recreate home in a foreign environment. I found bike tours, adventure tours, eco tours and all the rest. But, what I never found was a way to actually learn how to travel – or learn from it. I never found anyone willing to offer their students the reigns, or show them what goes on behind the scenes. I never found anyone willing to tell me it was my adventure, not just another tour with their program. My biggest dream during high school was to learn to travel, and I never found anyone willing to abide. More »

School Books

As the holiday season fast approaches and the winter cold descends, looking for good books is a quest that grows more and more important. I thought I would recommend a few books that I found wonderful which are about the experience of school (which is after all, what this blog is about).

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger: If you want to even start to talk about books about schools, you have to mention The Catcher In The Rye. This book is great and still holds resonance today (despite what anyone says.) You have to read this book.

Looking For Alaska by John Green: I took this book out from the library on a whim and was blown away. I read for a sleepless night until I finished this book. It is a furiously compelling book about what happens after a boy is sent to boarding school and his experiences there both falling in love and dealing with tragedy. I can’t recommend this book enough.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfield: This is another book about an experience in a boarding school, in this case unlike with Looking For Alaska, that of a female protagonist. The book is well written and quite entertaining. A while after I read it, I met a girl who had previously attended a wealthy school much like the one in Prep. The experience of her time in the school were astoundingly alike to those in Prep.

The War At Ellismere by Faith Erin Hicks: Speaking of boarding schools, this graphic novel about teen rivalry is unbelievably wonderful. With great characters, great art and a killer use some of the dialogue from Romeo And Juliet, I would highly recommend this book.

MirrorMind by Tory Woollcott: A really good graphic novel on coping with dyslexia. Highly recommended.

Escape From Special and A Mess Of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross: One day I was browsing at the library when I saw a book about a girl’s trouble changing to private school. I thought “this will probably be cliched and kind of boring.” I was bowled over by its honesty and power. This graphic memoir begins in its first volume, Escape From Special which is about about Lasko-Gross’s early years growing up and feeling alienated and feeling ‘different’ after being sent to a private school. The second volume details her use of drugs, beginnings of publishing comics and trouble when she learns one of her friends is anorexic. These two books are literally the best and most true things I have ever read about the experience of adolescence.

NOTE: this ended up having a focus on books on boarding school which is funny as I’ve never gone to a boarding school. Perhaps it is the differences between private day-schools and private boarding schools that is interesting to me and that is why I’ve leaned toward those books.

I didn’t provide links to buy the books but if you would like to know where to buy them I would recommend:

FOR COMICS: The Beguiling (601 Markham Street – Toronto, Ontario, Canada) which is an amazing store with an awe-striking selection.

FOR NOVELS: If you’re in New York go to The Strand! Really good deals, really cool place. If you’re in Toronto, I recommend Mable’s Fables or The Flying Dragon or BMV.

Thanks for reading.
Gabe Chazan

(for more writing on books by Gabe, check out his blog: readingbookwatchingmoviesandmore.blogspot.com)

An Excellent Use For Plain Old Dirt

Modern Mudpies – Children’s Activity

Kids can make art from the dirt around them.    MudStencils.com showcases a really cool (and low-impact) way for kids to show off  their art.

Take soil and water and mix in a bowl with a whisk – mix to the same consistency as peanut butter.  Cut out a stencil from mylar (adults will recognize this as overhead transparencies), tape to some concrete or other surface that can be hosed off and dab on the mud.

It’s a snowy/rainy day here in Southern Ontario… you might want to wait a bit before trying out this activity.

Trick or Treat: $5,000 for African Village Well

Most kids embark on Halloween intent on getting as much loot – candy – as possible, with high hopes and lofty dreams for sugar highs and the largest piles of candy. For Logan and Mary Jones, trick or treating began in early October, knocking on doors as part of Trick or Treat for UNICEF, the program that replaced the Halloween boxes trick or treaters used to carry. For the Jones siblings, their pile of candy, so far, is $5,000, or enough to build a well in an African village.

The desire to help an African village stems from Logan and Mary’s visit to South Africa two years ago. When asked about their efforts, this is what the siblings had to say (in part):

What is your life like compared to the kids you met in Africa?
Mary: We are very lucky and have a lot of money and are able to run our tap until the water gets cold.
Logan: We have houses with walls and beds and toilets.
Why are you raising money for UNICEF’s Halloween campaign?
Mary: Because of all the people in Africa who have to walk like 15 miles to get water and they have to use that water for all their dishes and bathing and drinking and cooking and all they can carry is one bucket and it takes like two people to carry that. And the buckets are pretty small.
Logan: I chose the clean water option because it seemed like the most important one to me.

More photos below; the rest of the story is on canada.com.

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Summer 2009 Zoo Camp… the end is here!!!

Hey everyone,

We have just wrapped up our 2009 season with Week 10 “Zoo U”. I can’t believe it’s over! This has been such a fantastic summer We have made some great friends, met some amazing critters and learnt SO MUCH!

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