2017 Summer Camps Recap

We have once again wrapped up a fun-filled summer! This year, we hosted a variety of camps and activities on our campus. Beginning in June, we held 15 summer camps over the course of three weeks for our lower and middle school students. Calvert summer camps enabled students to improve and explore their creativity, imagination, athleticism, and sense of community in a safe and familiar environment. There was something for everyone at Calvert’s summer camps. Some of the activities that students had the opportunity to partake in include: playing in a basketball tournament, building their own arcade game, designing and building prosthetic limbs, performing in a play on stage, making tie-dyed t-shirts, and gathering as a community each week to enjoy Kona Ice snow cones.

Our rising Seventh through Tenth Age students enjoyed Explorers’ Camp in July. Campers took an “international journey” around the world learning about new cultures from India, Africa, and Peru, and back to the United States of America. Each day camp began with enrichment blocks with reading and mathematics skills, and in the afternoon students took part in crafts, games, and cooking. Students enjoyed interacting with their friends in this week-long program.

Also in July, we hosted our four-week QUEST (Question, Understand, Experiment, Solve, Test) camp. QUEST is part of the Middle Grades Partnership (MGP) that forges connections between private and public schools in our community. This summer we hosted Hamilton Elementary Middle School, and each week there was a different theme including engineering and city. New to this year was “Gears, Machines, and Robots,” which involved projects based on the work of cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Using the design thinking process, students were given two-four challenges per day where they had to work in groups and use the engineering design process to plan, design, create, reflect, and improve. Each day, students logged what they did into a journal which allowed them to reflect on their activities day. Weekly themes centered around engineering and included city design. At the end of each week students presented their work in a showcase event for parents, teachers, administrators, and MGP staff. Students also honed their public speaking skills by synthesizing research and creating slide presentations for their peers. Students also had the opportunity to learn about careers in fields associated with each weekly theme. In addition, Cheo Hurley of Park Heights Renaissance (a non-profit organization focusing on community revitalization of Park Heights area) was a guest speaker during our City Design week.