CCU summer kids camps make learning fun
by Mazzei
Pint-sized superheroes run around in colorful capes saving the world from misfortune, while others excavate tiny plastic dinosaurs from ice with their chisels. Art made from pasta and glitter adorns the classrooms, and the sounds of Disney songs and children’s laughter fill the halls at the Myrtle Beach Education Center.
It’s the site of the fourth annual Summer Kids Camp at Coastal Carolina University, sponsored by the Office of Executive Development and Continuing Education.
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Kids from 6 to 10 can attend a full or half day in various camp programs on such topics as superheroes, food, magic, science, dance, as well Disney's "Frozen" and many others.
Camps are held weekly through June and July. Typically, the camps host from 75 to 100 campers each week. Last year’s summer camps served about 800 students from 6 to 12 years old. Every Friday at 4 p.m., campers proudly display their artwork and put on musical and dance performances based on what they learned during the week.
Kelli Barker, director of operations for the Myrtle Beach Education Center and coordinator of the camps, says what makes CCU’s camps different is that they offer an educational experience that includes the students having fun.
“The science camps offer hands-on experiments they don’t always get to do in a classroom. Musical theater is a big hit with children in the area, as well as anything centered around food,” says Barker.
Another thing that makes the CCU camps unique is that the instructors are from Horry and Dillon counties.
“The fact that Horry County school teachers are eager to come back each summer is a compliment to our program,” says Barker.
Each teacher writes a description of a camp and designs a lesson around it; there are no guidelines.
“Whatever you want to do to make it fun and interesting,” says Evangeline Freshley, Pee Dee Elementary schoolteacher and CCU alumna who is teaching the Jurassic Dinosaur Adventure Camp. For her camp, she came up with an ice excavation, where the students chisel away to get to toy dinosaurs that have been frozen in ice. Campers also make dinosaurs out of dry pasta and dinosaur bones out of cookie dough.
“You can be more creative and explore things you don’t normally do in a classroom,” says Freshley.
Ali Zuk, a fourth grade teacher at Myrtle Beach Intermediate, runs the superhero camp where kids explore different activities centered on their favorite superheroes. Students make capes, play “wrap up the burglar” and draw their own comic strips. Toward the end of the week, local firefighters and Myrtle Beach police officers come by to talk to the students.
“They are superheroes who are with us every day,” says Barker. “We like to promote the local heroes as well as the superheroes.”
CCU summer camp staffers all agree that the camp is the best of both worlds – a camp that is both fun and educational, while also including outdoor activities.
“It is nice to work with the younger kids in a different environment besides the school classroom,” Zuk says.
