Harvey Cavalier Camp: What the Good Camps Offer

Harvey Cavalier Camp: What the Good Camps Offer: When the final school bell rings signaling “no more pencils, no more books, no more ….” (Well, you get the idea), kids across the land rejoice for the beginning of summer break and family vacations to exciting locales, trips to visit grandma and grandpa in faraway places, and, for many, the start of summer camp.

It doesn’t matter if their choice is day camp or sleepaway, parents should know that enrolling their children in a summer camp allows for the learning to continue beyond the school calendar, and in many ways, within a learning environment that is often better suited for the child, especially if the choice is a “good camp.”

What summer camp means to your child’s development

In her online article on PsychCentral, Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. gives great advice on what enrollment in summer camp means to the growth and development of a child during the time the youngster is away from school and immersed in a good camp.

Dr. Hartwell-Walker says summer camp is great at providing kids time away from feeling the pressure to achieve, from having to do things on time, from having to learn at someone else’s pace.

Good camps start with professional camp counselors

Good camps satisfy parents’ desires that their children keep learning and growing through the summer in a safe, nurturing environment that offers kids a host of opportunities to explore beyond their familiar range of knowledge and experience.

Good camps not only offer interesting and exciting activities but do so with professionals guiding the campers through uncharted realms of experience. Professionals not only have the knowledge but also the skills to share what they know in meaningful ways. High school or college-age counselors may mean well and have the enthusiasm and personality to make the campers feel comfortable in a new learning activity, but qualified professionals have the experience and expertise to fully engage the campers in a meaningful and fruitful learning environment. When researching camps, parents should ask the directors: who’s teaching my child in the activities? And ask as well the most important question: How do you vet your instructors?

Good camps let kids choose their own activities

The best of the good camps offer a wide array of electives and allow campers to choose their own activities … with some guidance from mom and dad, of course. One of the great pleasures I enjoyed as a longtime director of Harvey Cavalier Camp was seeing the excitement and anticipation on the faces of the youngsters when they received their summer schedules, ones that they themselves created by choosing electives that would satisfy their curiosity and motivate them to fully engage in the activity.

As you attend offseason open houses and search the internet looking at camp options, be sure to consider only those that are first, proven to be safe; second, offer a wide range of interesting electives; third, employ talented and qualified instructors; and, lastly, create a summer learning environment that not only provides fun but opens up your children’s eyes to new knowledge that more than fills the void left by the long layoff from school.

Choose from over 50 electives at Harvey Cavalier Camp

The Cavalier Camp is renowned for its unique, individually tailored program as campers design their own schedules, choosing from more than 50 electives in fine arts, creative crafts, theater, dance, music, martial arts, science, robotics, cooking, gymnastics, swimming, indoor/outdoor sports, tennis, ice skating, and circus arts!

Cavalier Camp’s outstanding instructors in the fine and performing arts, the sciences, gymnastics and sports are talented and dedicated adults who share their expertise in a remarkable program that boasts a 3:1 camper-to-staff ratio!

With fun activities throughout the six weeks such as dance parties, variety shows, field trips, theme days and one huge scavenger hunt on the Harvey School’s sprawling 125-acre campus in Katonah, children experience the fullest measure of an extraordinary day camp experience. Harvey Cavalier Camp is indeed, as one very happy child so aptly put it, “a day camp that feels like sleepaway except you get to go home every day.”

Discover the beautiful, bucolic campus of Harvey when the Cavalier Camp holds Saturday open houses on Feb. 2 and March 2.

For more information on the Harvey Cavalier Camp, visit http://www.harveycavaliercamp.org