by Meghan Hill, Director of Business Operations and Alumni Relations

As parents, we’ve grown accustomed to seeking out meaningful learning and enrichment opportunities to occupy our children during the summer months. Unfortunately, try as we might to engage them in an array of diverse and thought-provoking enterprises, a vast majority of kids spend countless hours during those eight weeks in front of some sort of screen, sight words quickly forgotten, times tables tabled until the fall. 

Summer learning loss is a well-documented phenomenon, better known as the “summer slide.”  While Camp is the perfect place for kids to be kids, we also recognize the fact that it also happens to be an idyllic experiential summer learning opportunity where children can be supported in their social and intellectual growth.

The staff at Camp Burgess and Hayward has embraced the summer’s potential as well as the role we play in combatting summer learning loss. Our programs combine camp traditions with creative and engaging learning-intensive opportunities, through which our campers acquire and practice essential life skills.

Beyond the lessons inherent in our programs, we strongly encourage our campers to bring books and journals with them to Camp. Many campers take advantage of their daily siesta by making it DEAR time (Drop Everything and Read). Additionally, we make reflection an intentional part of the Camp experience, integrating sharing into our camp fire gatherings. We are currently reaching out to local libraries and civic organizations to help us grow our Camp Library so that we always maintain a wide selection of books available for campers to access.