Our NEW Daily Schedule!
The most common question heard by summer camp professionals is: What do you do during the rest of the year? And, while we like to joke that we twiddle our thumbs and wait for June, the truth is that our nine months of “off season” are full and busy. Lots of planning goes into making camp the fun, magical, kehillah kedoshah we create each summer, including camper recruitment, program planning, masa permitting, and staff hiring. We are eager to give you a glimpse into our winter office through a series of upcoming blog posts.
As mentioned, one aspect of our off-season revolves around program development. We examine the previous summer: what worked really well, what was a flop, and what could use some revision. Each year, right after the summer has ended, we read through hundreds of pages of feedback collected from our chalutzim, parents, and tzevet. Our annual “You Shared, We Listened” email delivers the results of what we have learned and explains how we are moving forward towards the following summer.
For Kayitz 2019, we are excited to share our new daily schedule, which you can view here. Three highlights from this are – breakfast before tefillah, an extra daily perek, and a scheduled afternoon snack time. Our hope for these changes is to provide our campers the opportunities for more active engagement in tefillot and to experience either more base camp activities or dive deeper into their favorites.
Program changes like these seem simple and straightforward, but there are many factors which impact the flow of a day at camp. Some of our considerations are:
- Is there enough time to prepare breakfast without requiring our kitchen staff to wake up exceptionally early?
- What do our mumchim (specialists) need time-wise within a perek to allow our chalutzim to really dive into an activity? If we adjust the length or number of prakim during the day, does this allow us to offer more double prakim to our older chalutzim?
- How does switching breakfast and tefillah first thing in the morning impact nikayon (cleaning)?
- When should each edah (age group) have their z’man edah (edah-based learning time)?
We are eager to try out this new schedule with our 2019 chalutzim and tzevet, and appreciate your feedback in helping us to continually improve our program! If you would like to learn more about our new schedule or other program changes, give us a call or an email – we are always happy to discuss.
-Rabbi Eliav and Julia
