California Time!!

My first day at the mini camp was challenging. It is actually really nice to have a super small group for circle songs at the beginning and end of the day, because they all sing and they learn the songs much faster. But a five person class is difficult. Any activity we do takes about half as long as it does in a 10-12 person class, and most of the kids are staying two weeks, so I will have to think of tons of activities.

But the best part of the day was California Time! Our director asked Sara and I if we had any ideas for a camp theme. We'd never heard of such a thing, but Sara remembered that we're both Californians, so she suggested the best state in the union as our theme. After lunch, we spend an our and a half teaching something about our state and doing an arts and crafts activity related to the topic of the day.

Today, we started with geography. We taught them the major cities, valleys, and Lake Tahoe, and then they colored in the regions. After that, we painted a huge map to put on the wall. It was a lot of fun, and made both Sara and I so happy. Tomorrow we are going to talk about California sports, and we'll split into Giants and Dodgers and play baseball, teaching them lots of good vocab. On the agenda for later in the week... technology, the environment, cinema. Please let me know if you have other ideas!