Summer is in full swing and we are already two weeks into day camp!  Being a camp counselor is probably the best summer job.  Ever.  As the Arts & Crafts specialty counselor at camp I spend my days in a shady clump of trees doing fun projects with cool kids. Here are some projects we did during our first session of camp!

To go with our theme, Celebration of Nations, we did a craft related to a different country each day:

• Day 1 – Egypt
• Day 2 – Japan
• Day 3 – Australia
• Day 4 – Norway
• Day 5 – Ghana
• Day 6 – Mexico
• Day 7 – Arctic Region

Day 1 – Egyptian Hieroglyphic Scrolls

We made scrolls out of strips of paper wrapped around different sized drinking straws. I used the simplest looking hieroglyphic alphabet I could find on Google (I ended up using this one).  With the younger kids, I had them write their names inside their scrolls. For the older kids, I started with an activity for them to practice decoding the hieroglyphic symbols. I made several scrolls of my own and wrote Egypt-themed jokes inside each one. Once the jokes had been decoded the kids wrote their own secret messages to each other and to counselors inside their scrolls.

Day 2 – Japanese Carp Windsocks

Using a fish template from this blog, kids colored their paper carp. Then we cut them out, glued the tail fins together, and secured the mouth open with a staple. Last step was to tie their fish to a stick so they could wave them around in the wind.

Day 3 – Australian Aboriginal Dot Paintings

For our Australian themed craft, we made dot paintings using q-tips. I cut out a bunch of stencils for the kids to trace on their papers and then they filled in the space with different colored dots.

Day 4 – Norwegian Gnomes

I saw this gnome craft on Pinterest, and they looked adorable so I had to try it with the kids.

Day 5 – Achi Game Board Pouches

Achi is a two player game from Ghana that is similar to Tic Tac Toe. You can learn more about it on Wikipedia. For this activity, campers were given a circle of felt or fabric. They decorated these with the achi game board. Then we turned their boards into little drawstring pouches to hold the game pieces. They did this by hole punching or cutting holes around the outside of their circles and stringing yarn through to cinch the pouches shut. These are a convenient size to carry in a backpack in case of boredom!

Day 6 – Mexican God’s Eye

This is a classic camp craft not requiring much explanation. I only got a few photos of this activity, but it’s a fun one!

Day 7 – Aurora Borealis Chalk Drawings

For our last day of the session we used chalk to create drawings of the northern lights.  This activity I found here on Pinterest.  I thought they came out pretty cool.

 

That’s it for Camp Session 1! Stay tuned for more activities later in the summer 🙂