Week 1: Gametastic!
Word of the Week: Friendship
Hollywood
East: Hello families and welcome to hollywood! This first week students were able to hone in their creativity through theater. This year one of our groups created lyrics for our very own summer adventure camp song.We’re making lasting memories and fun catchy tunes. Since our theme is gamtastic we are doing a puppet show based off of a famous game show! We’re calling it Camper Feud! You’ll also spy some fantastic fashion inspired by favorite games, sports players, and video games. We love to keep it fun with dances. You will see, not one, but two amazing dances themed around teamwork. This year we’re combining two groups to do one large dance!
As always it takes a large, amazing crew to make holl\ywood happen. Many teachers and kids create the amazing show you will see on Friday. It’s never a dull moment in the classroom and we’re lucky to have such creative kids who enjoy expressing themselves on stage. Hollywood is all about building our confidence for expressing ourselves. If we accomplish anything this summer, it will be about loving our creativity and sharing it with our community.
Healey: Gametastic things are happening in Hollywood as we kick off our first week of camp! With so many streaming services out there nowadays, it can be hard to figure out what to watch and where to watch it. Look no further, though, because our Friday Variety show features a special lineup of all your favorite game shows in one place! If you can’t wait to binge The Great British Baking Show as soon as a new season drops, you have to check out The Great 5th Grade Baking Show—new recipe, same great flavor! If cooking shows aren’t your thing, tune into Are You Smarter Than A 6th Grader to see if you can still keep up with the kids. I heard a rumor that there are some new celebrities appearing on the Masked Singer…could your child be one of them? For even more entertainment, be sure to watch this week’s America’s Got Talent, which features some of Somerville’s best young dancers and bucket drummers!
East: We've kicked off our first week of summer camp with creative flair, embracing the "Gametastic" theme with enthusiasm. Campers designed their own BINGO boards, playing the classic game to win tickets, adding a playful competitive spirit to the activities. They also crafted interactive sensory journals, allowing them to explore textures and colors in a fun, hands-on way. Additionally, the campers experimented with making unpoppable bubbles, enjoying the seemingly magical creations they brought to life.
Destination Imagination
Healey: Summer program has just begun, and so has all the fun. Destination Imagination will be all about honing our pencil drawing skills. Gametastic is the theme this week, so through the lens of video game characters, we will be learning a little bit about how to draw people. The first lesson of the week is about how to cheat and transfer a line drawing from one piece of paper to the next and then adding the details and background of your choice. The second and third lessons of the week are step by step instructions leading to a drawing of the most popular game characters Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Judging by the hush in the room at every lesson for every group, I would draw the conclusion that the students were completely absorbed by learning how to draw popular video game characters! Spacial relationships and fun all in one bag!
STEAM
East: Hi Everyone!
Welcome to the summer adventure program! I’m Mrs. Alison and I am the STEAM specialist at the East. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. In this class, we will focus on those subjects when we do our activities related to each week’s themes! This first week's theme is Gametastic! We have focused on learning about board games and making our own board games and dice! Students really enjoyed making their board games and playing them with each other on Friday 🙂
Healey: Hi everyone! My name is Ms. Elizabeth and I am excited to teach STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) this summer! We are going to do experiments, use technology, engineer structures, and more!
Each week’s activities will relate to the weekly theme. This week the theme is Gametastic! In STEAM, we created our own games, played with technology, and solved mysteries. Students engineered marble mazes out of recycled materials, working iteratively until the maze functioned as they intended. Then they were challenged to become computer coders, designing direction code to get fruit out of a maze and giving very specific instructions to the ‘robot’ on how to make a sandwich. Finally, they became chemists, experimenting to solve the mystery of which kitchen powder was which.
We are looking forward to continuing our STEAM explorations next week!
East: Hello everyone, welcome to Just Do It! This summer we have some amazing teachers working with us including Ms. Nicolee, Mr. Leonardo, Mr. Taylin, Mr. David & Ms. Diana.
During week one, we had the opportunity to get to know each other a bit while learning rules that we follow in Just Do It as well as familiarizing ourselves with the daily routine when coming in. We are so exited to be back for another eventful summer! There will be lots of time and space for some fun. While learning all about the rules, we also had some time to take part in some quick paced games such as Chain Train & Pirate Ship. Both games introducing and practicing our throwing skills as well as teamwork and good sportsmanship.
One of our valuable lessons this week included that at the end of the day, we all win when we’re participating and having fun with each other!
Just Do It
Healey: Just Do It teachers, Ms. Maria, Dylan, Shane and Colin, have had a lot of fun with our students in this first week. At the beginning of the week the students played some icebreaker games to get to know their teachers and each other a little bit as well. Then, the students also learned the sport of Dodgeball and soccer. Once they understood the fundamentals, the campers played full games where they were able to demonstrate what they were taught. It was definitely a very successful and productive week.
LIT's - Healey
It has been a great first week for the LITs! On Monday, we got to know each other and the school by playing a couple ice breaker games, and checking out the school and the backlot playground, basketball courts, and turf field, where we will be spending some time this summer. We played "Scramble" in the gym, which is a free-for-all version of dodgeball where you can only take 3 steps after picking up a ball, and have to try to knock all your friends out of the game. Finally, we brainstormed our business idea of a lemonade stand, and decorated some beautiful signs for the stand! On Tuesday, the LITs went with the rest of the program to "In the Game" in Peabody, and had a blast playing arcade games, eating pizza, and playing lazer tag. On Wednesday, the LITs took their first exclusive field trip down to the Blessing of the Bay Boathouse on the Mystic River where we went kayaking! After that we marched over to Foss Park and hit the pool for a bit before returning, exhausted. We look forward to our Nahant Beach field trip with the rest of the camp on Thursday, our first lemonade stand on Thursday afternoon at the Healey, and playing the camp counselors in the "LIT Games" on Friday!
Counselor's Corner
East: Happy First Week! Welcome to Counselor’s Choice with Ms. Gina at the East Somerville. I am super excited not only to see everyone but to work with everyone. In Counselor’s Choice, we meet weekly to build on our Social Emotional Learning skills. This week, we focused on Feelings.
Feelings are something we all experience. Sadness, happiness, fear, hope, anger, peace. Students learned that sometimes our feelings can be big or small. We talked about our daily feelings and how breathing strategies can help our feelings. We enjoyed some calm-down drawing with a partner to draw each other's feelings while one student acted out the feeling and the other student drew what they might think the feeling was. Everyone did an excellent job sharing what they drew and was awesome during our discussions! All left the class happy and cannot wait to join class again next week!
Healey: Welcome to Adventure Camp 2024 and to Counselor’s Corner at the Healey with Miss Dana.
We are happy being with your kiddos at camp and hope you all enjoyed our first week together.
In Counselor’s Corner this summer, we will be focusing on Kindness. Every week, we will learn about the benefits of kindness and the ways we can be kind – to each other, to our community, to our world, and to ourselves. This week, we found out that one of the best things about kindness is the way showing it comes back to us like a boomerang. Being friendly, generous, and considerate is how kindness is spread and is never lost!
We can’t wait to continue our kindness journey in Week 2! Please ask your children to talk with you about what they are learning 😊
