Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/summer-camp-101/5025883/
While studying early childhood education in college, I found a summer job at a local child care center as an assistant teacher for the summer camp program. My first week on the job, the head summer camp teacher, who was not much more experienced than I was, announced that she had found a different job. The group of kids was smaller than expected, so the program administrator explained that I would be running the program by myself. We had a small room with a television and VCR, one large table, a stack of board games, and access to a playground at the nearby elementary school. We alternated between games, a few activities from items borrowed from other classrooms, and daily trips to the playground. At one point, the administrator dropped off a book with some examples of science experiments, so we followed a few recipes on rainy days. I thought things were going well and I enjoyed my time with the children. Looking back on it, we did not do much more than hang out all summer. I had missed a great opportunity to enrich and enhance their learning and development. —Tracy
While it is typical for afterschool programs to provide ...