Farm & Wilderness Blog

From Rain to Heat ... - Farm & Wilderness

Written by abreen | July 17, 2013

At the BDC, we give campers a choice of awesome activities in the afternoons. This helps them make choices independently and try new things.What we do here dovetails nicely with a New York Times discussion on the benefits of camps.

Here is a sampling of the BDC activities for the last week.

Slytherin in the House, Tea Party (drinking tea while on the raft in the BDC swim area), greased watermelon in the shallow portion of the BDC swim area, Swamp ‘Em in canoes, extreme yoga planking everywhere and anywhere they could, guacamole making with tools, cookie making without measuring, blind food eating (strawberries, carrots, dates and other items), story book reading, slip and slide, crate climbing, duct tape bracelets, face painting, flower crowns, extreme fort building, fairy house making, fairy furniture making and I am sure there were more that I missed.  You may just have to ask your child to explain or let them enjoy what they did on their own.

Sometimes I wonder how they choose.  These of course are just the activities right after Silent Meeting.  There is an entire morning of activities that happen in a variety of areas, which include things like:

  • Fixing the steps to Silent Meeting in work projects
  • Picking raspberries for the farm stand in farming
  • Building fires different ways at Outdoor Living Skills
  • Swim lessons
  • Looking for bugs in nature
  • A variety of things in the art barn and working as a group to accomplish a task in adventure.

Then, last but not least, kids end their days with “free time” where they have the choice of going to any of the activity areas or just hanging out and running around the bowl and the play area.

The day is full and fun and there are just too many things to do.

This is why we love the BDC.