At Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church, children from 5 – 10 years old had a blast during our Arts & Sports camp. During our four week camp, a new Urban Hands Mission group would come each week to get to know our campers and lead the weekly activities. The Urban Hands groups were coming from all different rural areas around the country in order to get an opportunity to volunteer and serve within different urban youth camps.

Our youth groups lead a plethora of fun hands on arts and craft activities, as well as activities as diverse as cooking, introduction to basic sports, and even educational games. All of the fun was then followed up with some reflective prayer in order to explain to our participants the importance of some valuable life lessons such as: “treating others the way you would like to be treated.”

Some of the favorite art activities included making paper Mache piñatas, tie-dye t-shirts, origami, and even sock puppets for our “good Samaritan performance.” Our sports line up included a games like: kickball, tennis, yoga, baseball, and relay games; while we also found ways to make learning fun by including sign language, scavenger hunts, and even some interesting science projects that the children could easily replicate at home! Last but not least, as hot as this past summer was, we of course had to include some water time with our slip-n-slide, water-balloon fights, and visits to the near-by Wilson pool. All and all, it’s safe to say that the children as well as the volunteers and instructors all had a productive and fun summer at Wisconsin Avenue!

Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church hosts both a Spanish Immersion Day camp as well as a French Immersion Day Camp. The schedule of our Immersion Camp is much like that of our school-year routine, only with a little less focus on writing and traditional school practices and more time allotted for games, music, and outside play with water sports. While the entire morning is still spent listening and speaking only to the target language, a lot of the day is spent with fun hands-on arts projects: including teaching the children how to prepare decorative and tasty snacks. Twice a week the children had time to play outside in our waiting pool and even use our slip and slide; and a guitar player and singer also joined us twice a week for music time. Some summer field trips included visits to the pool, library, fire house, and the zoo. The general camp day lasted from 9:00 am to 12:30, while an extended day was also available from 12:30-4:00pm, with before-care from 8am – 9am, and after-care from 4pm -6pm.

With our partner organizations, this year we had summer camps in six locations as well as a Summer Youth Service Corps for teens age 14-16 through the DOES Passport-to-Work program. Sites included two schools, community rooms in public housing, a community center and a church. From field trips to a focus on faith and values, from academic enrichment to developing relationship skills, summer was devoted to expanding horizons and developing positive attitudes and behavior.

This past summer, City Gate continued to provide engaging, fun science programs for 60 students at two DCPS schools, Randle Highlands and Ketchum Elementary in Southeast D.C. Students studied one science theme a week such as alternative energy sources, the solar system, forces, motions and light. And we didn’t do this with textbooks either!

Students engaged in hands-on learning projects that pushed them to their intellectual limit without taking the fun out of summer. In order to learn about alternative energy sources, students built solar cookers (the brownies and grilled cheese were delicious)! To learn about our solar system, they took a virtual tour of the universe (they made paper Mache models of their favorite planets), studied how color affected temperature (we painted aluminum cans different colors and to determine whether color effected the temperature) and learned about forces and motions by racing toy cars. Students followed a seven-step scientific method model for each experiment and worked in small groups to complete each project with the guidance of an instructor.

It wasn’t all about science. Students also improved their reading, writing and interpersonal skills by participating in academic enrichment activities and working in groups. For example, students created and joined a book club of their choice and read everyday in their groups for 30 minutes with an instructor. Also, students competed in spelling bees designed to increase their vocabulary dexterities, drew comic strips, wrote, performed and recorded commercials and followed written directions in order to bake cake with their group mates.

In addition, once a week, students went to Anacostia swimming pool to cool off and participated in other field trips in the D.C. region that expounded their science experience in the classroom. Students went to the Planetarium, Newseum Museum, The National Zoo, the Air and Space Museum and roller-skating at Temple Hills Skating Palace. This was an action-pact summer and the children at Randle Highlands and Ketchum thoroughly enjoyed their science summer experience.

This past summer we had our most successful year to date, serving 55 children in our Summer Camp at Richardson Dwellings. We were able to employ 35 SYEP student workers (many from the community) to help out with daily camp activities and we routinely had Urban HANDS groups visit us as well. Our summer camp offered varied learning activities for the children each day, giving them opportunities to grow socially, mentally, and intellectually. Every day, children had a designated time to read with one of our many volunteers, this was a critical way for our students to receive needed attention and tutoring. We also encouraged children to express their creativity, offering many arts and crafts activities this summer, such as painting, beading, weaving, coloring, drawing, and building structures with items such as popsicle sticks. Many arts and crafts were skill based, or theme oriented, due to vacation bible studies conducted by Urban HANDS groups. In addition, explorative science projects, centered on exploring the natural world were conducted during the summer sessions, providing crucial opportunities for students develop cognitive and problem solving skills. And of course, we gave them time to exercise through basketball, dodge ball, general playground time, and frequent swimming trips. Children were fed nutritional lunches and given snacks daily, made possible by the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB). The CAFB also sponsored a visit from a Farm Truck which had planted vegetables and other engaging exhibits on display for the children, given them the opportunity to learn more about nutrition and health. We frequently had parents help out with activities this summer and kept the program open to the entire neighborhood, engaging many people in the wider community. On many occasions we took the children on exciting field trips to places like Aquatic Gardens and the National Arboretum, and we ended the summer with a big ice cream party!

For over 100 children in SE DC, summer was both fun and educational by providing City Gate’s Science Based Summer Camp 2011 at the Merrick Center! The camp was designed to allow children ages 5 to 14 as much freedom of choice as possible, all within a structured and safe environment. While filled with science activities, we also provided a variety interactive activities that improved the basic math and reading skills of our children. We also enjoyed the experience of training an empowering our SYEP workers and of course working with so many Urban Hands volunteers. Toward the end of the camp, we hosted a dinner for our parents and provided our children an opportunity to showcase their gifts and talents on the last day of our Science Based Summer Camp 2011. OSSE Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley stopped by and had dinner with us as she enjoyed her visit by watching our children as they showcased what they had learned. Summer 2011’s Science Based Summer Camp truly allowed children to learn, explore, and grow in an environment filled with lots of hands-on activities and fun.