From a Tutor’s Perspective….. week 3, July 9, 2010 On my first day at Camp Spring Creek, all campers, tutors and counselors gathered immediately after breakfast for the Reading Hour. What amazed me was the remarkable organization of the event. Book selection was based on student reading and interest level. With the focus of building an enjoyment of reading, the reading partners enable students to build reading stamina as camp progresses.
When a student finishes reading with a partner, the number of pages read is recorded. A daily total of pages read is transferred to the Trail of Pages which we post and celebrate weekly. The first week we read 884 pages. On week 2 we read 1068. On week 3 we read 1651! What growth we’ve seen from our campers already!
Our students benefit more than academically from the Reading Hour. It’s a time for us to sit outside in the crisp mountain air and share the experience of a good book. Reading practice is an activity often neglected. Here at Camp Spring Creek we’re establishing great reading habits to continue for the rest of our lives.
From everyone else:
Okay, Okay--not quite sure what's happened to all the posts that everyone worked on for last week. I went to load them onto the blog from the flash drive and got multiple error messages---ahhh! Let me see if I can fill in and our apologies.
The 4th of July Penland parade and the camper's participation was incredible. Each and every camper was involved and Camp Spring Creek won the award for "Most Spirited Audience Support" or something along those lines. This years theme was "Dare to be Different" and campers dressed in costume, wore face paint, and danced and played their instruments they've made in woodshop.
We hosted a dance last night in the dining hall and it was great fun. Counselor Mike used his DJ computer program to keep everyone moving and grooving. One counselor maybe did a little too much moving as he split his pants on the dance floor!
We had two more campers join us last Sunday and they have fit right into the swing of things. This Friday we will say goodbye to 5 of our campers and welcome many new faces on Sunday. If you're one of those faces, we look forward to seeing you very soon!
Everyone is very busy with all of their academic and recreational classes. Meals are quite social and we are continuing to reinforce table manners, conversation, and tasting a little of everything at each mealtime. The salad bar is quite a hit (again) and so far, beets, carrots, edamame, green peas, and mandarin oranges have been the most popular.
It's nice to read all of your comments, and we often share them with the camp at lunch so keep 'em coming!
