Below are full descriptions outlining important Activity Provider Administrator Dates and Deadlines, Important Events, Resources and Announcements for SDA 2017.
This FAQ will be updated weekly as the content for the weekly eNewsletter is distributed.
Please visit this FAQ for answers to frequently asked questions and e-newsletter content, please contact apost@unitedwayswpa.org with additional questions.
Table of Contents
Activity Provider Administrator Dates & Deadlines
Site Information & Contacts
Provider Resources
Best Practices
Activity Provider Administrator Dates & Deadlines
Feedback
If you have any questions, concerns or challenges, before or during SDA camp, please connect with us through our feedback form.
SITE BASED TRAINING
Site based training for enrichment providers will take place on June 22nd beginning at 12pm. This will be an opportunity for providers and staff to meet, and there will also be a behavior management training. Keep in mind that this is the day of SDA Night out, which runs from 5pm to 8pm. Lunch will not be provided. Each provider should go to the camp where they will be working.
SDA Night Out is a time to showcase the activity you will be doing with campers: you might to want to include literature for parents, a family interactive activity so that all can participate, props, etc. In other words, you should be ready to showcase to families what their children will be involved in during the summer.
Attendance
Attendance forms should list the site, date, camper first name, and camper last name. APOST will accept a variety of formats, such as paper copies, scans, pictures, or shared google drive documents. Feel free to use the format that is most convenient for you and your team. Please note that attendance should be tracked each day and no invoices will be paid without supporting attendance documentation from providers. Send attendance to apost@uwac.org.
Site Information & Contacts
Behavior Management Plans
See the links below to downloadable versions of behavior management plans for each camp site.
Site Related Announcements
UPREP NEWSLETTERS
Activity Providers at Camp King, please click here for special site related announcements.
CAMP CARMALT ANNOUNCEMENTS
You are invited today, June 19th 5:30-7:30, to participate in the open gym for Camp Carmalt. This will not be structured but it’s just a good time to build relationships and get to know the campers’ parents. Please e-mail Miluska Triveno to sign up.
Also, please contact your activity specialist, Miluska Triveno, with a logo for your organization. These will be used for the culminating activity flyer.
Activity Specialist Contact Information
Below is the contact information for all three activity specialists: Please note the staffing change at Camp King.
|
Name
|
Email
|
Camp Site
|
| Donna Ervin | dervin1@pghboe.net |
UPrep
|
| Alexander A. Novickoff | anovickoff1@pghboe.net |
King
|
| Miluska Triveno | mtriveno1@pghboe.net |
Carmalt
|
Provider Resources
Photo/Video Release
Best Practices
Smooth Transitions and Closure
There are only two weeks left of camp! Time has passed so very fast; we learned about mindful learning, youth-adult relationships, reciprocity, and active learning. As you transition out of camp and back into the school year, check out tips to support smooth transitions and closure.
Click here for closure activities, and here to revisit last year’s suggestions.
Place-Based Learning
Reciprocity
Reciprocity can help children trust their environment, take risks and explore. Have you wondered how you can develop reciprocal relationships with children and you? Adora Svitak suggests that the first step is to listen and be open to learning from kids! Check out her short TED Talk here!
Click here for tips and suggestions on building better relationships.
Click here for more information on building respect and reciprocity between children and adults.
Communication
Communication with students is essential for a successful program. However, working with your colleagues is just as important. The chaos of camp can be very overwhelming and make it difficult to relay information to your team.
Here are some strategies for effective communication in the afterschool setting, plus tips and exercises to create an environment that allows for listening, sharing, and growing!
Failure and Mistakes
As you begin building camper confidence and building relationships, students will start to trust you and look up to you. As a learning facilitator you know that failure and mistakes will happen. Students will struggle with new materials and at times become discouraged but we know that’s where growth happens!
Click here for an excellent video on failure and the arts, and some tips for how to deal with failure during the activities.
Transitions
Last week we focused on practical behavior management strategies. Some of our favorite strategies are to: establish routines, give choices, & forgive. Routines give predictability, choices give power to students, and forgiveness fosters compassion and trust. Next week campers, old and new, will begin a great summer adventure. But, it’s NOT school IT’S CAMP, and campers might struggle with the transitions and general flow of the day.
For tips and tricks on transitions and general planning, click here.
Practical Behavior Management
Over the last three weeks we’ve focused on mindful thinking, engagement, and problem solving. Although we can support mindfulness in the classroom, and it can help students be present to the lesson – including their physical emotional feelings during that less – the system is not bullet proof. Children will have good and not so good days, and you will too! So, what can you do when children act out? First, consider what we’ve learned over the past three weeks: stop, breathe, feel, & engage. Do not be afraid to hold space for your students to process their emotions…but what if it is disruptive to the lesson? Some of my favorite strategies are to: establish routines, give choices, & forgive. Routines give predictability, choices give power to students, and forgiveness fosters compassion and trust.
For more practical behavior management tips for the classroom, click here.
Action & Proactivity, Critical Thinking to Problem Solve
Last week we focused on using mindfulness to help students stop, breathe, feel, & engage to problem solve and think critically. So, how do we move forward from mindfulness to action; how do we help students engage and problem solve? Paulo Freire, a 20th century Brazilian educator, understood learning through tangible experience and dialogue with one’s community. So, as you help students think critically in the classroom remember to emphasize creativity and inquiry, and help students be proactive, not just consumers.
Here is a great TED talk on how students can, by interacting mindfully with their environment, solve the world’s problems!
For practical steps for supporting mindful problem solving, click here
** Specifically, the Your Role section**
Engaging Students as “Co-Creators”
As you prepare for your first day of SDA, you might be wondering how you will effectively engage your students. Teachers and youth workers know that engagement can either make or break a lesson. A strategy to engage students from day one is to invite students to participate in the lesson as “co-creators,” giving students power and voice to create knowledge alongside the instructors. In turn, students can take ownership of their work and be inspired to create outside the classroom.
To learn about about engaging students as “co-creators,” click here.
Mindfulness
Last week, we focused on engaging students as “co-creators”, and giving students power and voice. This week, we are focusing on Mindfulness. While being engaged and active is important, helping students develop awareness of their bodies, mind, and thoughts helps them manage the stimuli in their environment, and better engage with the activity. For example, younger children have much more difficulty understanding and noticing their emotions and thoughts, which can distract them from the project tasks. Mindfulness can help students stop, breathe, feel, & engage to problem solve and think critically. How do you stop, breath, feel & engage when a task is overwhelming or you cannot concentrate? Have you tried Mindfulness before? Share your story with us!
To learn about the importance of mindfulness for children, click here.
For mindful activities in the classroom, click here.
To find reading materials and other resources, click here.
Connected Writing Projects
As you prepare for the first day of SDA, now is the perfect time to think about how you can use hands-on activities to really strengthen your connected writing curriculum. A very useful tool for this is Mind Mapping: a visual way to organize information. You start from a central theme or idea and you branch out out to similar concepts using pictures, words, or phrases. It’s a great way for youth to think about how concepts are connected.
Click here for a sample Mind Map and more information on how the process works.
Pacing
Pacing is often thought of as the length of time that it takes to get through a given activity. However, it can also be described as the perceived amount of time that it takes to complete an activity. Have you ever worked with a group of youth on something that took 15 minutes to complete, and they all thought the activity had been going on for much longer? That’s because of pacing. It is important to make sure that in facilitating the learning process, you are always mindful of the various ways that campers will have an opportunity to engage and interact with the lesson. This means that some students will be able to get through content more quickly or more slowly than others. As you are developing your curriculum, think of using pacing techniques as strategy for managing that learning process.
Click here to access a good tool to help you think about how you can best manage pacing in your summer curriculum.
Checking for Understanding
Checking for understanding is an essential part of the learning process. This strategy allows you to assess camper needs/comprehension and identify areas in your lessons or curriculum that should be adjusted accordingly.
Click here for 53 ways you can check for understanding throughout your summer curriculum.
Opening Activities
As you all put the final touches on your summer curriculum, it is important to note that the very first minutes of each session can set the tone for the rest of your time with your campers. Therefore, you should plan something that will be both memorable and engaging to kick off your time together.
Click here for more information on creative ways to start your lessons.
Asking Effective Questions
Campers will be engaging in a variety of activities over the summer months, which bring with them new opportunities for learning and growth. During this time, you will be tasked with supporting the development of their critical thinking skills. One strategy for creating a space where thinking “outside of the box” and stimulating conversations are encouraged is by asking effective and targeted questions throughout your activities.
For ideas on how to structure effective questions, refer to the Bloom’s Taxonomy Question Stems.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative Learning is about creating a collaborative group working environment, where youth support each other through the learning process. In order for our campers to be successful this summer, they will need to learn how to work collaboratively with their peers. As activities providers, you have the unique opportunity to support our campers in this area.
For strategies on how to develop a cooperative learning environment, click here.
Smooth Transitions
Regardless of the activity planned, there will be multiple tasks that campers are asked to transition between throughout the summer. The strength of well-planned transition activity is its ability to minimize disruptive behaviors as campers move from one activity or space to the next. Planning out transition activities in advance of summer will ensure that you are prepared to create a strong summer culture.
For sample transition activities, click here.
Team Building
Creating opportunities for campers and staff to build strong relationships throughout the summer is a great strategy for ensuring that campers buy-in to the camp culture. Ice breakers are one way that you can focus on building community among campers and staff this summer. Not only do they help youth get acclimated to their new environment, but they also support the development of social skills.
For a list of 40 icebreakers you can try this summer, click here.
Camper Engagement
With all of the fun and exciting activities planned for the summer, we want to ensure that all campers are able to participate and contribute to their own learning process, as well the learning process of their peers. This means putting in place structures and practices that keeps campers engaged throughout your entire activity.
For 10 strategies on how to promote camper participation, click here.
Group Contracts
Group contracts are a great way to establish expectations and norms for your space this summer. It’s an opportunity for youth to have a voice and say in the rules that govern their space, and allows them to take ownership and responsibility for their actions within the parameters of the contract. We strongly recommend that you and your campers work together to develop your group norms on day one of camp.
For a sample group contract, click here.
Scaffolding
Attention Getting
Before we can begin our activities, we first have to ensure that we are able to grab every camper’s attention as we go over expectations or directions. There are several methods that you can use for getting a camper’s attention, such as a call and response or countdown.
For attention getting strategies, click here and here.
Assessing Camper Progress
In order to determine knowledge gained or mastery of concepts, all providers should include some form of formative assessment within their daily lessons. This allows staff to adapt curriculum in real time to ensure the needs of the campers are being meet. Exit tickets are one way to do a quick formative assessment at the end of a session.
For a new take on how to implement an exit ticket strategy, click here.
Closing Activities and Final Projects
Throughout the summer, your campers have been building new skills and are ready to share what they have learned with the world. In addition to thinking about your closing/reflection activities, it is time to start pulling together your final connected writing projects. Projects can include a whole host of concepts, such as: informational brochure or “How to” Manual; commercial or infomercial with a script written by your campers; or even a visual arts project with captions and stories. Feel free to be creative with your projects, but don’t forget the written component.
For ideas on closing activities, click here, and for ideas on culminating projects, click here.