The Hi-Hills Herald Issue #5
July 24, 2015
Top News at Hi-Hills Day Camp!
Celebrating our 49th Summer!
Carnival Week at Hi-Hills! Week five brought us so many memorable activities and events. Despite a scorching start to the week, campers were able to stay cool and hydrated. Fortunately, the weather was on our side for Hi-Hills’ annual Carnival Day. With blue skies all around, our campers, counselors and staff came out and had a blast with all the carnival games, attractions and treats! In other news, campers have been working together on their color wars banners all week, which they presented during council ring. Down in nature, bunks meandered through the stream and found some interesting critters! Although there were no leagues competitions this
week, we ran our own version of the “All-Star Break” with a Home Run Derby and Around the World Soccer. This week also marked the Lower Camp Late Night. Bunks 9 through 13 stayed back Thursday night for some extra pool time, a tasty barbeque and some fun athletic games on the turf. Parents were invited to join their campers for an ice-cream sandwich dessert. As we move into next week, we are all gearing up for Hi-Hills’ Olympics. We hope you have a wonderful and restful weekend. Get excited for week six!
Table of Contents: Note from Camp Directors Bunk Updates
2 3-5
Bunk Photos
6
Birthdays This Month
7
Dates to Remember
9
Program News
8-10
Upcoming Dress Days 11 Counselor of the Week 11 Leagues 11 Trivia Winners 12 Counselors in Training 12 Teen Travel 12
Gill St. Bernard’s School, 25 St. Bernard’s Road, Gladstone, NJ Phone: 908-234-0067 • Fax: 908-234-1611 • Email: info@hihills.com hihills.com • www.facebook.com/hihills
te o N A ur o m fro Camp rs to c e r i D
Hello Hi-Hills!
Dear Hi-Hills, Week five is traditionally a favorite at Hi-Hills, and this year was no exception. The fun can all be summed up in one word: CARNIVAL! Our upbeat activity specialists, counselors and campers worked together to create their booths. Some of this year’s favorites were the spin art booth, the marriage booth, the pie eating contest, the water balloon toss and the Coke and Pepsi Challenge. As always, the cotton-candy and snow cone machines were a success! The great outdoors (Home Winds campus) was transformed into a true carnival complete with an inflatable water slide and a dunk tank, where the counselors, campers and even administrative staff willingly participated. This year’s costume contest winners were as follows: Anjola and Anna as “Sweet Treats”; Ellie, Campbell, Quinn and Bianca as the characters from Inside Out; Emma, Julia and Erin as characters from Mario Kart; Betsy and Kiara as clowns; Nick as Ron Burgundy; and Jason as a grumpy grandma. Thursday night was another Hi-Hills tradition: the Lower Bunk Late Night. As the buses were pulling away, Bunks 9, 10, 11 and 12 took over the pool. The Lower Bunks enjoyed a picnic dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers and snacks. Parents joined their campers for ice cream sandwiches while cheering their campers on during the staff/camper soccer shootout. Watching the kids’ faces light up while sharing the fun with parents and other family members was truly special. Many thanks to our staff for all the hard work they put in every day here at camp–without their contributions, events like these would not be possible. As always, we thank you for sharing your amazing children with us!
Cindy Wyatt – Director of Summer and Auxiliary Programs Nicole Spiotta – Assistant Director of Summer and Auxiliary Programs
Bunk Upda tes Bunks 1 & 2: T he Little Rascals Kinder Camp had an amazing week! The pool and splash pad were the place to be on this week’s really hot days. Sam, Sydney C. and Makayla all leaped in and put their heads under water, which is a huge accomplishment for such little campers! Brooke, Maddy and Jadesola tried their hand at the pool’s rock climbing wall, and they all made it to the second section. Ellie and Ariel enjoyed the refreshing water of the splash pad and had so much fun dumping buckets! Sienna floated on her back, with the aid of a lifeguard, for the very first time. We are so proud of our little fish! Two of the highlights from this week were going into the stream and Carnival Day. Ryan and Ainsley enjoyed themselves wading through the stream and seeing all the aquatic life. They even found a couple of salamanders! The big hit during the carnival was the huge water slide. Henry, Salome and Maliah showed us just how fast they could climb up and slide down, and of course arrived at the bottom very wet! It has been an amazing five weeks, but there is still plenty of summer yet to come. Keep your eyes peeled for some more exciting events coming up for Kinder Camp! -Beth, Zoe, Viviana and Jamie
Bunk Upda tes Bunk 9: T he F irejets Bunk 9 had a fun-packed week, and we welcomed Arnold to our bunk! Although we had a very hot start to our week, we were able to cool off at the pool and catapult water balloons at the great outdoors. Wednesday was Carnival Day and the boys had a blast; there were so many activities, from water slides, a dunk tank, archery, a beanbag toss, darts, spin art, cotton candy, snow cones, and pie eating contests just to name a few. I am sure everyone had a good night’s rest Wednesday night! Until next time! -Joanne, Jason and Ben
Bunk 10: T he Lovely Ladybugs Bunk 10 had an amazing week here at camp! I can’t believe we are already going into week six! Time continues to fly, and we’ve been having so much fun. There were so many opportunities to have a wonderful time! Annabelle really enjoyed getting dunked in the dunk tanks, and the rest of our bunk enjoyed the challenge of trying to dunk her. Quinn won the costume contest and looked fantastic! All of our girls got incredibly creative in their costume design. Barrett and Jianna really enjoyed the water slide and the challenge of climbing up. Mia had a great time making spin art and doing nail polish! Arihanna had a fantastic time painting her friendship necklace in pottery. We can’t wait to see how well it turns out! On the other hand, Bianca, Katharine and Dasha really challenged themselves on the courts at tennis! We all look forward to what week six brings us! -Betsy, Kerry and Kiara
Bunks 11 & 13: T he Speedy Cheetahs The Speedy Cheetahs had another great week full of fun and surprises. Obviously, the big highlight was the carnival and all the related activities. Our campers could be seen taking part in everything from the water slide, to the dunk tank, to the pie-eating contests. We certainly got our fill of cotton candy too. It was a very memorable day that none of us will forget! -Ben, Patrick, and Marc
Bunk Upda tes Bunks 16 & 18: T he Sensational Showstoppers Yes! Yes! Yes! This week was our best week ever! The Sensational Showstoppers are heating things up with cheers, color wars competitions and games. Carnival Day was a blast. All of our campers, counselors and staff had a wonderful time! We loved dressing up in our favorite costumes. The weeks are going by so fast, but we still have many exciting things coming up in weeks six, seven and eight. Until next time, have a safe and glorious weekend! Go Showstoppers! -Maria, Jess and Cara
Bunks 12 & 14: T he Hi-Hills Heroes It has been a very eventful week for the Hi-Hills Heroes. The girls had loads of fun during carnival, catapulting water balloons, riding the giant water slide, dunking their fellow campers and counselors, and winning lots of prizes! Andrea was very excited about winning a gold mask at the prize table! Our bunk was in charge of the tattoo and nail station, and Annie was a huge help in giving the other campers tattoos. All the girls participated in the costume contest, and Campbell and Ellie took home first place for their group dress-up as the characters from the movie Inside Out. To finish out the day, Annabelle won the coveted candy count and got to take home a bucket full of candy! Mary had a great first week of camp and made lots of new friends. We can’t wait to have even more fun in week six! -Megan, Erica and Amanda
Bunk 15 & 17: T he Bronanas Week five was another spectacular week at Hi-Hills, especially with Carnival Day! The Bronanas thoroughly enjoyed dunking their fellow campers in the dunk tank and eating cotton candy in the morning. In the afternoon, the boys got to run the pie-eating contest booth, while visiting everyone else’s booths and having a grand ol’ time. Towards the end, the pie-eating contest turned into a pie-smashing bonanza with people getting pied in the face! While the boys really enjoyed carnival, they always have a fantastic day at camp. This week, we brought out the go-karts and played cops and robbers. The boys worked really hard in both arts & crafts and performing arts to create roller coasters and set designs. The boys continue to impress their counselors with their amazing attitudes and great sense of fun. -Graydon, Bridget and Andrew
Bunk Photo s
Birthdays T his Month July 4 : Isaac Li, Joshua Monto, Anna Torgovnik July 5: Benjamin Sturman July 7: Mary Young July 8: Joshua Narsu, Isabella Orosz, Ellie Procaccino, Julia Spinelli July 9: Dashiell Malone
July 11: Robert Bellina July 12: Liam Kaplan July 13: Marky Rusas July 14: Logan Weimer July 15: Otto Larsen July 20: Zoe O’Connor July 23: Cian McGuire, Abigail Saitta July 25: Will Strong July 26: Eleanor Lee July 27: Rebecca Fernandez, Ryden Maeda July 30: Emma Tokelson July 31: Haoyuan Sun
m a r g o r P News Low Ropes What an exciting week this has been in low ropes! We introduced a new element this summer: the Wild Woozy! It is a very challenging element that requires a great deal of balance and communication. We are both very proud of our campers for putting in their best effort. Our campers also had the opportunity to have a go at climbing over the suspended tire. Many thanks to our counselors for their excellent spotting! -Miss and Chris
Performing Arts This week in performing arts, we introduced the campers to “The Carnival of the Animals� by Camille Saint-Saens. They did an activity based on different movements from the piece where they were asked to draw different lines or swirls based on how they were feeling while hearing the music. The campers also did an activity where they created sets for a Broadway show as a competition! Happy carnival week! -Stefanie and Taylor
Swimming Although Augie was not in this week, the pool ran smoothly. It was certainly a hot week, and the pool was the perfect spot to cool off. With the excitement of carnival, the whole camp had a blast ending the day in the pool together. -The Hi-Hills Lifeguards
Program News
Kinder Camp Family Fun is next Wednesday, July 29
Tennis This week in tennis we continued to move ahead, and the energy level has been great. We further developed our hand-eye coordination. All of the campers have shown steady improvement in all areas of tennis. In the upcoming week, we will incorporate the fundamentals, forehand, backhand, serve and volley into game-play. This week, we had a question and answer session with some of the bunks. They did an outstanding job learning the scoring, rules and regulations of tennis. We are already psyched for week six! -Chris
The Great Outdoors (where the smiles and fun never end)
Week five at the great outdoors was carnival week. We had everything from a two-story waterslide to a dartboard full of balloons waiting to be popped at archery. The morning was dedicated to water balloon and super soaker fights, ending with a skirmish between the blue and green teams on the catapults. The campers had such a great time that they did not want to stop for lunch! This week in archery, campers played tic-tac-toe and worked on their form. Some of them have been practicing for the upcoming archery trick shot challenge. The campers in the lower bunks have demonstrated improvement and much better consistency with their form. Fishing continues to yield multiple catches each day and most of the bass are over twelve to fourteen inches, with sunnies at a minimum of eight to ten inches! Paddle boating seems to be a favorite activity among several bunks. Some campers raced down the pond, while others just sat back and relaxed while slowly navigating around the pond. During clubs, some of the older bunks have started fishing from the back of the paddleboats. The wildlife feeding station has yielded over four hundred photos from various periods in the day and night, including some infrared night photos of deer and raccoons. On their trips over to the great outdoors, the campers have had a chance to view the photos. The cameras we are using are motion activated and are capable of taking both still frames and videos. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to integrate technology with our activities. During week six, we will be taking short videos of critters that visit our feeding station. We can’t wait! -Matt, Sarah, Thomas and Em
Mark You r Calendar
Dates to Rememb er!
Program News Pottery This week in pottery, the campers continued practicing their skills on the pottery wheel. They also glazed and painted projects from previous weeks. However, we mainly focused on getting ready for Carnival Day. We all had a blast! Kinder Camp made my all time favorite ride: bumper cars! -Savannah
Nature This week, the campers took their second walk in the Peapack Brook. There were many successful catches of fish and salamanders. During Carnival Day, campers tossed ping-pong balls into floating flamingo cup holders. Upper and lower bunk nature clubs continued to have many excited participants. Next week for Olympics week, the bunks will be rooting for their teams’ cockroach as we have our annual Madagascar Hissing Cockroach races. Good luck to both teams, and may the best cockroach win! -Mr. Nature
Arts & Crafts This week, Kinder Camp created clown faces using paper plates, triangle hats, pompoms for hair, and finger-painted hats! Bunks 9, 10, 12 & 14, and 11 & 13 created circus elephants with baggies of supplies and finger paints. Bunks 16 & 18 and 15 & 17 worked with partners to create paper plate roller coasters, which turned out really cool. During Carnival Day, campers got to create and take home spin art using six neon colors. They were also able to catapult paint using five neon colors to create a camp poster. I’m not sure what got more paint on it: the grass, the poster, or me! -Lindsay
g n i m o c Up ays D s s e r D
Next week is Olympics Week! Dress up as your favorite Olympics athlete, sport, country, or anything Olympics related :)
Counselor of the Week #COTW
Bridget Toolan Week five’s Counselor of the Week is the Bronana’s one and only Bridget Toolan! According to campers, “Bridget is an amazing counselor. She is very funny and cool. She keeps the bunk in order, and makes everyone’s day.” Congratulations Bridget! We are so proud of all our counselors and their stellar work. Each and every week they receive countless nominations. Keep up the great work, and stay tuned for next week’s winner.
Leagues
There were no leagues competitions this week. We were on an All-Star Break. Look out for next week’s standings!
ia v i r T y l k Wee Winners
Monday: Caitlin Murgatroyd and Lindsay Bloom Tuesday: Ellie Lee and Armeen Mozaffari Wednesday: Matt Rivas Thursday: Jianno Ferro and Joanne Hibbett Friday: Ben Green and Maria Diaz
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See you in week six! Have a wonderful weekend!
Teen Travel This week, Teen Travel went go-karting in Jersey City, had a blast at the annual Hi-Hills Carnival and enjoyed an afternoon cruise around Manhattan. Our booths at the carnival were the Frisbee toss and the potato sack race and they were a hit! Most of us participated in the costume competition and three of our teen travel girls, Julia, Emma and Erin, won for best trio costume! We’ve had a great week and look forward to next week and beyond! -Kaitlyn, Matt and Joseph