In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:

In article
, Luna
wrote:
In article ,
ospam (Splanche) wrote:

As for it being a brief game, well, that's possible, but I know when I
played a version of this at a 3rd grade birthday party it was a lot of
fun.
Since 3rd grade is kind of the midpoint in the age range of the kids I'll
be working with, I figured aiming for that age would snare the most kids.

I think you're being a little too optimistic about reading skills.
Most 3rd graders would be ok, but it sounds like you have entering
Kindergarten
and up-- which means a number of kids will have VERY limited reading
skills,
and then the older kids (5th, 6th grade) will have no interest. My 4th
grader
can't stand the "getting to know people" game like this.


I'm sure we'll have many kids who won't like to play this game, just as
we'll have many that won't want to play the other games either. Some of
the kids don't want to be at camp at all, they want to be at home, watching
tv or playing video games, and they're ticked off that their parents made
them go to camp. However, not participating is not an option, in any of
the activities we do. This goes for us, the counselors, as well. If one
of the counselors starts a sing-along, the rest of us have sing too,
whether we want to or not.

I'm sure glad I'm not sending my 8-year-old son to your summer camp! Being
forced to play a lame game like that one would result in even more
stubborn fits than school does. He might CHOOSE to play such a game,
but being given no options is almost certain to result in massive
disobedience. Getting him to go back the second day would probably be
nearly impossible.

This is just one game that we will maybe play once in a 5 week camp. The
whole day, every day, is made of structured activities. My sister went to
a summer overnight camp when she was a kid, for 2 months, and when it was
time to get up, everyone got up. No sleeping in. When it was time to go
on a hike, you went on the hike. Same thing with swimming, horseback
riding, etc. If you didn't like the food, fine, you went hungry. Not every
kid likes every activity in every summer camp, and not every camp can be
customized to each individual child's taste. Maybe some of the kids will
think some of the games are lame. I can sympathize, I think our work
shirts are lame, but I still have to wear mine. I had to play numerous
"getting to know you" games at our training sessions, and I hated every one
of them, but I want to work at summer camp so I did them with a smile on my
face. We want the kids to have fun, and some kids will have fun with Game
A, some with Game B, and some with Game C. Hopefully we will have enough
variety that everyone will have fun at some point, but there is no way to
be 100% sure that 100% of the kids enjoy 100% of the activities. And
having "everyone just do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do
it" simply would not work, unless we had enough money for each kid to have
his or her own individual counsellor to follow them around to the pool, the
soccer field, the arts and crafts area, etc. Actually it would have to be
two counsellors per kid since regulations forbid any counsellor to be alone
with a kid.

Oh, and as for your child having fits when told to do something by an
authority figure, how does he handle having to do homework? Or take a
test? Or be quiet in class during lessons? If his reaction to being told
what to do by an authority figure is to have a fit, then I'm glad he's not
coming to our camp either.

--
Michelle Levin
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick

I have only 3 flaws. My first flaw is thinking that I only have 3 flaws.