My name is Sarah McCoy and this is my 4th year working as the Events Coordinator at the BJU Museum & Gallery. Our Gallery is comprised of Old Master paintings from the 13th-19th centuries. We also have a museum of ancient antiquities from Egypt, Rome, and Palestine.This is our 5th year hosting Kids Create! which is an art camp for kids. My responses to your questions are written after each question you listed below. Please feel free to contact me if you have additional questions. Good luck with your camps!
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/15/03 10:13AM >>>
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?Last summer we had 16 staff members (3 art teachers, 9 assistants (Gallery docents), and 4 college-age interns).
Do
you use volunteers or staff? Any teenagers? Is it the same staff every camp
week? They are all paid staff although the pay scale is lower for the interns. We don't use teenagers. This is the only camp we offer during the summer and it lasts 4 days (Mon.-Thurs)
What age-range does your camp program cover? 2002 covered ages 6-14. Due to lack of response from older kids, we have limited the age range to 6-11 year olds for 2003.
Do your camp staffers plan the material or does someone else? Our camp teachers plan the material NOT the dir. of ed. The teachers deal with the kids so they better know how to plan the material. Our dir. of ed. does look over the lessons, however, as does our director. The material is written during the school year. Now that we have 5 years of curriculum, we plan to begin recycling the lessons. For example lessons from 1999 we'll use in 2004.
How long is the camp day? Mon-Thurs from 10 a.m.-12 noon
How many camp weeks do you have during summer vacation? One camp week
Do you have any outside activities? No time for outside activities
Do you have discipline problems with the campers and how do you mange that? By the first day we can pinpoint kids with discipline issues so we have an assistant stick close to them. We also promote good behavior with small incentives. We keep them so busy they don't have much time to misbehave.
What kind of spaces do you have the kids working in (the museum galleries?
classrooms? auditoriums?) Our kids spend time touring the galleries and then they do their artwork in two large galleries that are relatively "safe". We also give the kids specific instructions about museum manners when they're in the galleries. The tables where they do artwork are always situated in the middle of the room so they're not close to the paintings.
If you're a historical museum, do you have your camp follow the day/week of
a child in that period? We've studied Renaissance and Baroque art as well as their respective time periods.
Is there free play/down time in the schedule for the kids? What activities
do you use for those times?There is free time outside when the kids are being dropped off by their parents. We have the kids work on huge murals out on the sidewalks. We also have a break during the morning for Sprite and cookies (nothing major).
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 charge $25 for the whole week. Believe it or not some parents complain about the price. I told them that our camp is cheaper than getting a babysitter with the added benefit that their child learns something about art and they take home a great project each day. We make a big deal about our excellent teacher child ratio. 2002 camp had 89 children enrolled. This year's limit is 80 kids.
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
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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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