Travel & Places Outdoors

Go Beyond The Traditional Summer Camp Experience And Learn The Ways Of Nature

In this era of specialization, the value of a traditional summer camp experience with archery, canoeing, campfires, nature walks, horseback rides and rock climbing is more difficult to explain to perspective families, foundations, and educators. Traditional Day & Resident Camps are like liberal arts colleges. Summer camps must teach behavior before skill we teach how learn and interact successfully in groups. More and more, society seems to turn away from the notion of liberal arts and the well-rounded individual. We are witnessing an unprecedented growth in technical or magnate schools at all levels, and the same thing is happening with summer camps too.
Now everyone has gotten in on the IL summer camps. Museums, churches, schools, YMCAs, YWCAs, Scouts, community foundations, state parks, and conservancy groups are all running camps. There are also soccer camps, art camps, dance camps, eco-camps, robotics camps, swim camps, lacrosse camps, and many more. Each of these programs teaches a skill. They teach kids to be a better soccer player, a better inventor, a better artist, or a better swimmer. Meanwhile, traditional summer camp programs continue with their less glamorous work - teaching kids how to be better people.
Summer camp in Illinois help campers develop into successful adults. Regardless of the camp activity, they teach kids the lessons of leadership. Whether on horseback, the archery ranges, or the climbing tower, they intentionally work to improve a young persons communication skills; they focus on the development of interpersonal trust, and provide opportunities for problem-solving. When a young person leaves the summer camp program, he or she is better prepared to serve as a leader, or be a responsible member of a group being led.
The traditional view of summer camps in Minnesota as a woody place with hiking, canoeing, and campfires is evolving, with greater acceptance of newer summer camps that offer a wide variety of specialized activities. For example, there are camps for the performing arts, music, magic, computers, language learning, mathematics, children with special needs, and weight loss. The Camping Association has reported that many camps have added new programs. This is largely to counter a trend of decreasing enrollment in summer camps, brought about by smaller family sizes, the growth in supplemental educational programs and the popularity of electronic media, all of which have made keeping children inside and occupied much easier than in previous generations. Camps can be for all ages.


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