Girl Scout Day Camp Ideas

[avjens]

I am heading up a Girl Scout Day Camp for ages 1st through 6th grade and am looking for a Day Camp idea. I have done the Amazing Race, which was way too much work, and last year I did Kid Koncoctions (science experiements) which was good. Approximately 25 girls will be in attendance. Any help would be wonderful!

 

 

[AnneinMpls]

Hi avjens! Welcome!

What is the site like that you're using?

Are you a "unit leader" or is 25 the total number of girls for the day camp? Are the 25 girls borken down into smaller groups?

How many days of day camp are you holding?

 

Do the girls like to earn stuff while they're at day camp? Do you incorporate outdoor skills? Do you do lots of crafts or very few?

 

Sorry to throw so many questions - just may help us generate more ideas for you!

 

Wide games are wonderful - maybe similar to what you did with the Amazing Race theme.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Anne in Mpls

[clydesdale115]

Last year we did Girl Scouts Rock! Activities centered around either rock music (I did a sock hop in music rotation, Jr. Night was a karaoke contest) or geology. Unit names were like Swingers, Be-Boppers, etc. We have also done Beach/Ocean, Back To Basics (camping skills, sit-upons), etc.

 

You've got me worried now ... we are talking about doing Amazing Race theme this year. Was it really too much work? I lead music each year so I'm already wondering how to come up with ideas. but what difficulties did you encounter using that theme?

 

Just to share: Our camp is indoors at an elementary school. We have classrooms for unit time, music room, art room, gym for opening and closing ceremonies and skits, lunchroom, outdoors, etc. We take a bus daily to a nearby pool we have reserved for the week. It bites into the schedule time, but it's a great alternative for us.

 

clyde

 

[Cheerful Eagle]

I can't really speak to day camp in specific, but I can recommend a framwork called "wide games" theres a great website that describes the concept in detail. I think it works great with the basic premise of scouting -- a game with a purpose.

 

http://www.classb.com/resources/wide/widev100.pdf

 

Our council in California (Pacific Skyline) had Cub-Parent weekends -- actually still does, I hear the upcoming one in may will be Summer Olympics themed -- and they are very sucessfull, and a lot of fun for all involved.

 

In previous years they have done:

Cubs in Space

Indy's Mountain Cub Adventure

Boulder Creek School of Wizardry

Cubs of the Round Table

Neverland (Peter Pan)

 

The possibilities are endless.

 

Good Luck and Have FUN!

 

It seemed to work best if you can have several staff development meetings where ideas can be hatched, fleshed-out and adopted by a staff person.

[avjens]

Sorry it has taken me so long to post --- have been sick.

 

In answer to your questions:

1. Yes, I am the "unit leader".

2. 25 girls are not necessarily broken down due to how many volunteers I will have or not have depending on the year.

3. I am only responsible for 1 day.

4. Yes, they like to earn something -- I can either have them earn a badge (which can be anything) or we can actually try to accomplish a try-it which is hard when you have brownies and juniors put together and that is why I prefer just doing some type of badge.

5. Outdoor skills?? The problem here is that I do not have a lot available at the city park. We are in small town Iowa, there is a small woods around the one edge but full of poison ivy and no trails and they do not allow any kind of fire on the premises.

6. Crafts are always a great thing.

7. The site where I will be at is on top of a hill.

 

I have never heard of Wide Games before so am looking at that right now. Also I have very little money to work with (approx. $3.50 per girl for my day).

 

Thanks for any suggestions!

[avjens]

Clyde,

 

We ran our Amazing Race very similar to the reality show. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work to get ready for it. Just required a lot of stuff for each event. Each country required a flag, secret, task to be completed, etc. and then the stuff necessary to complete the task. When I only had myself to get it organized and then had 5 volunteers the day of, who never met with me before hand, made it a little unorganized and crazy of a day. I think the girls enjoyed it, kept them very busy, but my Service Manager did say that some of the girls did not want to work that hard at Day Camp.

[SctDad]

We are doing 'Scouts on Safari' this year at our twighlight camp.

 

There are a lot of themes that you can use and figure out games from there.

[avjens]

'Scouts on Safari"

 

How did this work last summer? Any ideas you could send to me would be helpful! Thanks.

[smdscouts]

How wonderful..Our camp has over 300 girls. Talk about stressful.

 

We have done

Knot just another camp (camping theme)

Under the big top (circus)

Water theme with fishing ( I cannot remember the name)

 

We are doing amazing race this year! I am so excited! Swaps will be a pain but I have high hopes!