Comparison between visit only once or every year. Which of the two options is recommended and why? What will the child gain, and how his/her knowledge and skills will be further developed?
When should be enroll our child alone in a children‘s language camp? Will this be useful for the kid? Would it upset him/her a lot? Where and how to choose this camp so that the kid can feel as safe and comfortable as possible. How many times do we enroll the child in LuckyKids? Is it one time not enough, but two weeks, or perhaps he/she should visit the camp again?
Speaking of visiting a camp and children, there are several factors that should be considered: psychological and cognitive-behavioral.
Some of the children are extroverts and have no problem with camp visits – once, twice or more times. There is, however, a group of introverted children who, if they fail to find a friend in the camp, feel very depressed and sometimes get sick, after which the parents come and take them.
Parents who have sent their children to excursion or green schools are more relaxed and their kids are more independent. It is a problem for those whose children have never been separated from them, not even for a night – for a sleepover, in the house of their relatives or to a two-day excursion from school.
In fact, parents are always worried – whether the adults will take a good care of them, whether their child will think about his/her hygiene needs – toothbrushing, changing clothes, taking a shower in the evening, and so on.
Some may laugh, but when the kid comes back you may find that half of the clothes are untouched and the others dirty as of a soldier. Or, the question – “Why the underwear is not worn?”, The answer is “I did not find it”.
It is a good idea to arrange the luggage together. Some parents arrange the luggage in bags and number them according to days. Then the child just has to open the first bag and put on his clothes for that day, then the second and so on.
You can give more freedom to your children – let them decide how to combine clothes on their own – it may be funny, but not everyone in the streets dresses with taste and tone. It is great for the children themselves to have a sense of which clothes match well with others, what will be comfortable to wear and what they prefer.
According to the weather forecast, it is good to have both light and warm clothes for every occasion. If you put medicine in the luggage of younger children, it is good to have them in a special bag to hand over to the head of the group to be able to use them when needed. Also put books, drawing kit, entertaining games. If he/she wants, he can get a stuffed toy.
Avoid putting electronic games, phones with games, and the like – the kid goes to the camp to learn, communicate and play outside, socialize, and not once again to stand staring at one screen. Our idea is for the kid to find out that there are games and life out of the computer.
Pocket money is always provided for camps: ice cream, sweets, attractions, souvenirs, depending on the organization. It is desirable to have a preliminary conversation with the child, what to buy and what not – for example, that he/she can buy one ice cream a day and can not buy carbonated beverages because it will disturb his/her throat and ruin the camp. What the child will do depends on him/her. Maybe you will not know where the money went.
It’s a good idea for your child’s first camp to be with a familiar company – friends he knows. It is important that the child does not go for the first time in an unfamiliar environment and among strangers, especially if he/she is not very sociable. He will feel much better in familiar waters. And if everything is fine, it will quickly forget about you.
Children who go for the second time at the same camp things are very easy. They are familiar with routine, regime, know what baggage they need and are already self-sufficient. Some of them return to the camp with pleasure as they have an agreement with friends to be together in a camp at the same period.
Psychological factors and camp preparation, whether for the first or second visit, are of utmost importance for the child‘s adaptation in the camp, for his motivation to stay or go again.
Other factors are the cognitive-behavioral ones. Here the role plays the main activity the child performs in the camp. In Lucky Kids, the academic process is light, passes through the child’s experience, learning by doing, and in this form it is very attractive to our campers. Children are involved in a variety of projects, learning is not a dry matter, and all participants enjoy the learning process.
In this sense, we recommend that the initial visit to be two weeks, and if it is possible to make a second visit of the camp within one summer, the results will be very favorable.
During a re-stay, the child feels good because he is familiar with the routine in the camp, has an idea of how most activities happen, knows many of his teachers and animators, has friendships built that could continue in the next period.
The knowledge that will be further developed include:
А. In the field of language: the child will develop the structure of the language, will begin to communicate more easily and will expand his/her vocabulary;
- In the field of communication: the child will gain greater autonomy, will use more confidently the knowledge in his communication with foreign teachers; during the various activities, the child will be able to learn terms and expressions specific to them;
- In the field of socialization: the child will continue to improve one of the most valuable skills for life, namely to present himself in a group and to seek and find his place in it;
- In the field of project activity: the child will find solutions, seek information, learn to synthesize and analyze the most important in it; will enrich his/her knowledge in various areas of life/cooking, mountaineering, sports, fine arts and many others/.
As Jacques Delors writes in his report “Learning: the treasures within” before the International Commission on Education in the 21st Century, he formulates the four main pillars of modern training that we must follow in the Lucky Kids summer language camp, namely:
- Learn to know – to adopt knowledge and skills;
- Learn to do – to apply what we have learned;
- Learn to live together – to develop cooperation skills, understanding others, tolerance and conflict resolution skills;
- To learn to be ourselves – to form and develop personalities who will be able to defend their own ideas and positions.
