I'm beginning my gear up for the first camp week at work of the year, and
I'd like to hear about how other museums run their school-vacation day
camps. Last year was my first year planning activities and manning the
camp, and afterwards I suggested some changes to my boss which have been
implemented. But I'd like to find out more about other programs at other
museums.
I'd like to know:
How many staff do you have manning your camps, working with the kids? Do
you use volunteers or staff? Any teenagers? Is it the same staff every camp
week?
What age-range does your camp program cover?
Do your camp staffers plan the material or does someone else?
How long is the camp day?
How many camp weeks do you have during summer vacation?
Do you have any outside activities?
Do you have discipline problems with the campers and how do you mange that?
What kind of spaces do you have the kids working in (the museum galleries?
classrooms? auditoriums?)
If you're a historical museum, do you have your camp follow the day/week of
a child in that period?
Is there free play/down time in the schedule for the kids? What activities
do you use for those times?
This year we're charging a weekly fee and not a daily fee. We're also
limiting enrollment to 20 kids. There's only 2 staff for the camp: me and
one other educator who's been doing it for years. She didn't plan the
material, the director of education did. And so she would be handed a plan
of the day and sent forth with whoever was working with her that day. I
found that I really enjoyed working camp with her, and didn't like just
being handed stuff, so I volunteered to prepare activities for the next
camp, and have been doing so since last April.The camp day used to run from
10-4, with kids starting to be picked up at 3:30, and an "extended day"
that covered from 8:30-10am for an extra charge. That was covered by
running a video and sticking the kids in front of it -- which I didn't
like. So this year we're starting the day at 9 with a half-hour of free
play time in our hands-on room, and we'll end the day with more free play
time at 3:30. Which gives us the flexibility of if the kids start running
down at 2, taking them down to the auditorium and showing a video, if need be.
We are an arms and armor museum, but we like to have broader themes for the
camp weeks. Our kids are usually 8-11, but 7-year olds and 12-year olds
occasionally slip in. Last year our themes for the weeks were Robin Hood,
Vikings, King Arthur, Age of Exploration, and the Renaissance. In addition
to my lit background, I have a good science background and so we usually
work in some science stuff: pulleys and navigation, for example, during the
Ae of Exploration. We *don't* do obvious things like archery and fencing
with the kids because I think our age group is too young for that. If we
could split our camp groups so we had 10 younger kids and then 10 kids 12
and above, then I would consider doing archery and fencing with the older kids.
The oddest thing I find managerially abou the camp is that I am paid a
higher hourly rate for the time I'm actually at camp, not the time I spend
preparing for camp. I guess that has come about as one way to try to get
people to staff the camp week.
---Amy
------------------------------
Look, I have ONE job on this lousy ship. It's STUPID, but I'm gonna do it,
OKAY?
- Gwen DeMarco in _Galaxy Quest_
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