Day Camp National Camp School 2013

I was able to teach at BSA National Camp School for day camp leaders again this year, my fourth time.  The training is held at Camp Thunderbird, a cub scout camp near Olympia, WA.  You don't volunteer to be on staff at National Camp School (NCS), you are invited.  The volunteer staff came from Western Washington, Spokane, Portland, and Southern Oregon.  I love teaching at NCS because I love day camp and I love teaching with so many highly skilled instructors.

The van loaded up and ready to head to camp.

We really put the participants through a lot at the training.  It consists of two full days that begin with breakfast at 7:00 am and end with a cracker barrel (snack) at 10:00 pm.  The classes are 15-40 minutes long with most being 20 minutes.  That's a lot of different information to throw at people!  We do our best to keep it fun and entertaining to the participants.

My Darth Vader welcomed everyone to school.

Every year, the National office of BSA selects a theme for day camps.  We incorporate that theme into our National Camp School.  Using the same theme at NCS and my own camp works out great for me because I get to use my decorations more than once and I get them ready for camp months in advance.  

One of the thank you's I made to hand out.  I'd seen the idea on Pinterest, then couldn't find it when I wanted to make them so I had to come up with the dimensions myself.  It felt so unfair!

Another thank you.  Last year people complained on their evaluations that they received too much candy so I also had fruit leather.

We had a fridge in our classroom stocked with ice cold R2D2 water bottles.  I found the labels here.

I'm very proud of how I transformed last year's jungle monkey into a space monkey!

Inside our classroom.  I'll be able to re-use most of the decorations at my camp.

I was fortunate that both our school carnival and a pack in our district had an outer space theme this year and they let me have their decorations.  See the planet and stars garland?  I made it with a circle cutter, star punch and sewing machine.  I used a leather needle and just started sewing.  It worked great!  

Decorated table, ready for the participants to arrive.

Having a clock to keep track of time while you're teaching is a must!

Our classroom has a mantle that was fun to decorate.

A blurry photo of my core value flags hanging in the dining hall.

The instructors set up displays about different topics.  This is my nature display, with ideas for incorporating nature activities into camp.

This is my communication display.  It gave the pros and cons of various ways of communicating at camp.

My buddy Vader and me.  

The team I taught with.  Myself, Sheri and Tylene.  We decorated painter's suits with tape to become astronauts.

I taught seven different classes at NCS this year.  My favorite things to teach are how to do crafts and woodworking at camp (after doing 11 camps, I have a lot of experience in "what not to do" and enjoy sharing what I've learned with others) and building morale at camp.  Teaching at camp is a lot of fun and a lot of work.  It's also exhausting.  It took me most of the next week to feel like I had my energy back.