Summer Fun 2019

Summer Fun2019 A product of Barton Publications, Inc.

22ND ANNUAL Brandy Perryman Shooting Camp

Austin’s Premier Basketball Camp for boys and girls ages 7-16 Visit our sponsors

Locations all over Austin, including

GORZYCKI MIDDLE SCHOOL 7412 W SLAUGHTER LANE

For all other locations see our website: www.bperrymanshootingcamp.com

Summer Full-Scale Play & Musical Productions (Ages 8-18)

www.BPerrymanShootingCamp.com *Please note that registrations for Clay Madsen Rec. Center & Brushy Creek Comm. Center camp must be completed at their respective sites online or in person.

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STILL ENROLLING! Spring Semester Classes (Various Age Groups 3-15)

512-799-8891

www.HaysFreePress.com

(Various Age Groups 4-15)

3-week Play in June: The Completely* The Greatest Showman Show Choir (formerly Glee!) • Triple Threat True Tale of Robin Hood (*only Adventures in Acting • Creative Kids partially made up) 16 LOCATIONS 4-week Musical in July: FAME, Jr.

Register online at

For more information:

One-Week Summer Camps

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Beating the summer blues

Camps boost social skills for young people

BY MOSES LEOS III

place their children at camps like the ones at Olympia Hills, who seek a place For more than a decade, officials at where their kids aren’t in front of a TV or Olympia Hills Gymnastics in Buda have computer all day. come to expect the influx of summer “If they’re going to feel good about campers that are rearing and ready to put being at work and putting them in the school year behind them. different activities, they want them to do The gym is one of a plethora of places something exciting and not be at home in Central Texas that offers summer fun with a baby sitter or indoors,” Beal said. for children, and perhaps some peace of Sean Doles, YMCA of Austin vice mind for parents. president, said summer camps give But what summer camps offer far young people a chance to break out of surpasses the activities and games their normal routine. children play. Giving Close to 3,000 kids children and young attend 20-plus YMCA According to a adults a chance to get off summer camps in the couch and develop Hays and Bastrop 2012 Psychology Travis, social and societal skills Counties. Each week Today report by is something many camp averages close to 1,200 leaders have seen over kids in their programs.

Michael Ungar, the past few years.

Locally, summer Ph.D, summer Various studies camps are held at four over the years have Hays Couny locations, camps help to shown a correlation including at the Hays boost confidence Communities YMCA in between summer camps and boosting Buda and the Springs in children, as social skills among YMCA in Dripping well as improve attendees. According Springs. to the American Camp Doles said those at traits such as Association, camps camps can develop self-efficacy and can help young people social skills not always develop leadership and attainable in the normal resiliency. communication skills, school setting. Those as well as soft-skills such students also find a as resourcefulness, responsibility and personal they might not exhibit at home trustworiness. or at school.

According to a November 2015 ACA Over the years, Doles said more parents report, activities and programs at understand the value of getting children summer camps, especially with the help into camps, citing the importance it can of camp counselors, can help build a have on their development. sense of inclusion and support.

“They want to get their kids away from According to a 2012 Psychology Today their devices and video games and out report by Michael Ungar, Ph.D, summer into nature, interacting with other people camps help to boost confidence in and being active and participating in fun children, as well as improve traits such as activities,” Doles said. self-efficacy and resiliency.

While the YMCA offers scholarships Heidi Beal, gym manager at Olympia and financial assistance to parents Hills, said those who attend camps who might not be able to afford their can stay active and healthy during the camps, the same isn’t always the case summer months. Olympia Hills offers ten everywhere. It’s all part of a budgetary weekly sessions during the summer, with decision every family faces as the attendance staying relatively consistent summer approaches. over the years.

“For working parents, to have a fun safe By attending camps, Beal said environment for their kids to do during students are able to benefit from a social the summer can be crucial to a parent’s standpoint, as they interact with other peace of mind,” Doles said. “Rather than children as well as with camp leaders. have them sitting at home all day eating It’s a benefit for many parents who junk food.”

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The BIGGEST Laser Tag Arena in TEXAS!

1701 W. Ben White Blvd., South Austin 78704

512.462.0202 www.BLAZERTAG.com OUTDOOR ADVENTURES JULY 8TH-12TH

It’s in our nature to be outside! We will lead our campers on an exploration of the great outdoors, observe fish and wildlife, and learn hands-on ways to enjoy the natural world! We will design our own fish tanks and make some fun rock art. So join us and let’s get out there!

2019 Swimming weekly, field trips and guest performers highlight all of our camps!

Under the Sea JUNE 10 -14 TH

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Let’s hop into our submarine and dive into the sea to explore all things oceanic.

We’ll make jelly fish crafts and tooth paste for whales. Anyone for a game of Sharks and Minnows? We can’t wait to SEA you there!

CORRAL ROUND UP JUNE 17TH-21ST

Yee haw, y’all! Campers will live the farm life at Rocking Horse Academy.

Join us for barrel racing on the field and rope crafts that will have you cheering for moooooore.

Fun with STEAM!

SCI-FI ADVENTURE

JULY 15TH-19TH

JUNE 24 - 28 TH

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From a blast to the past to a look in the future, let’s trek through a week of Sci-Fi adventures. We will travel to new dimensions of fun as we explore the outer limits of our imaginations! We will grow our own crystals throughout the week and create our own outer space looks with splatter paint!

Star Spangled Summer JULY 1ST-3RD and JULY 5th

Red, White and BLUE is what you will be if you miss this week! We’ll celebrate the 4th of July in style. Salt fireworks will be exploding on colorful paper along with a picnic and swimming, face painting, and a whole lot of summer fun!

This week our focus is on all things STEAM! From experiments that will BLOW your mind to challenges that will grow it. Exploding plastic bags and bottle rockets are just a few of the fun things we will be making! We are getting handson with this week’s fun!

WILD ABOUT CAMP

Ninja Warrior JULY 29TH-AUG 2ND

Do you have what it takes?

Make a winner’s medal, solve some puzzles, and race through an obstacle course to test your skills, both physical and mental, to see who will become the next Rocking Horse Ninja Warrior!

Aloha Summer,, Aloha School AUG 5TH-8TH

How low can you go? Limbo into our End of Summer Luau to celebrate the end of summer and start of school. Don’t miss our glow stick hula dancing!

JULY 22ND-26TH

This week we are all about animals from the fastest cheetahs to the slowest sloth. Come let your wild side out. We will be making masks to show our inner animal and play some wild games. It is sure to have you roaring with excitement!

Enroll early!

Space is limited!

(512) 405-3700 • 6022 McNaughton, Kyle, TX (in Plum Creek) • www.rockinghorseacademy.com

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$6.25 million donation moves Buda’s Camp Cypress forward STAFF REPORT

The Moody Foundation has granted $6.25 million to the YMCA of Austin in support of the Phase I campaign goal for Camp Cypress, an 85-acre overnight and daycamp along Onion Creek in northern Hays County.

With a vision to create a natural oasis in close proximity to the Austin-area for Central Texas youth and families, YMCA Camp Cypress aims to become the most accessible and affordable camp and retreat center in the region.

“At the Moody Foundation, we believe every Texan should have the opportunity to learn about the natural world around them,” said

Ross R. Moody, trustee of the Moody Foundation and CEO of National Western Life Group. “Camp Cypress will help Austin’s underserved populations, including economically disadvantaged individuals and those with special needs, engage with their environment in a new way. Through our support of Camp Cypress, we’re proud to help create new learning opportunities for generations to come.”

Although the YMCA of Austin has integrated handson outdoor learning and activities through summer day camp and parent/child camping programs since the 1970s, it is also the largest YMCA in the nation without a

specific campus for overnight camping and related activities.

This grant brings the

YMCA of Austin’s total to $15 million in its Phase I fundraising goal to raise $18 million for Camp Cypress.

Agua Fresca Studios CREATIVE SUMMER CAMPS 9 a.m. -4 p.m. Full Day Camps 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Preschool Camp Ages 4-14 Art, Science, Photography, Music, Farming, Clay, Author/Illustrator, Ukuleles and more!

Beautiful creekside studio just 15 miles from Kyle

Wimberley TX www.aguafrescastudios.com

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Texas State University Aqua Fresca Studios?

We love what we do and so will you.

Est. 1988

HUNTERS CHASE FARMS Little Dancer’s Workshop Ballet * Tap * Jazz * Pointe * Hip Hop Cheer * Acro * Gymnastics Lyrical * Mommy and Me * Contemporary Performance & Competition Teams • Day and overnight camps • All girls riding camps • All boys “Cowboy Camp” • After school riding & off campus athletic programs • Horseback riding • Horse care • Swimming • Arts & crafts

(512)

842-2246

4909 Lone Mountain Rd., Wimberley, TX 78676 www.hunterschasefarms.com

Register Online Today!

www.DanceUnlimitedBudaTX.com

1019 Main Street • Buda, Texas 78610 • 512-295-3667

City of Buda Main Street

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FIELD TRIPS

CREATIVE ARTS READING

SPORTS

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING

SWIMMING

STEM PROJECTS LEGO ACTIVITIES

May 30 - August 9 An enriching, fun-filled child care program licensed by the State of Texas Camp sites at Elm Grove and Tobias Elementary Hours: 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Two field trips and one swim trip weekly.

Fee assistance for qualifying families Infant/pre-school program services available during summer.

See website for locations, price and information

Summer Camp 2019

“Enchanted Summer” Summer Camp 2019

(512) 472-9402 • www.eackids.org

Between “once upon a time” and “happily ever after” lies a magical world of possibilities, heroics, fantasy and fun with all the giant-battling, spell-casting, princess-saving glory and adventure a camper’s imigination can conjure. That’s what campers will experience when exploring the realms of magic, mystery and enchantment found in literature, expression, science and nature.

WHERE KIDS BECOME A COMMUNITY Camp, like many Y programs, is about learning skills, developing character and making friends. But few environments are as special as camp, where kids become a community as they discover both how to be more independent and how to contribute to a group as they engage in physical, social and educational activities. Y counselors are dedicated to making sure camp is an amazing experience for every camper.

Summer Camp Registration Open Now Ages 4-14 l Four Hays County Locations Kinder, Theme, Sports & Adventure Camps Financial Assistance Available Learn more and register online at AustinYMCA.org/camp

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Camp has its place in child development

BY PEG L. SMITH

Education reform is big news right now. The push for a nationwide move to year-round school is gaining steam, and the rhetoric is increasing. The issue at the forefront of this debate is summer learning loss. Yes, gone is the sunny disposition with regard to "the lazy days of summer."

And, in truth, there may be reason to be concerned. According to the Center for Summer Learning, all young people experience learning loss when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer months. But, is confining our children to classrooms year round destined to become part of the official definition of education? And, is that really the best course of action?

Or will that "inside the box (or classroom)" thinking cause more detriment to childhood development than good?

Is the question one of education, or should we not reframe the issue around how children learn?

It's just possible that our children are beginning to lag behind other nations in academic achievement because we are focusing on the wrong things.

Teaching children to pass standardized tests doesn't necessarily teach them to think for themselves. Education is about more than teaching answers; it's about equipping our kids with the ability to develop the art of seeing the possibilities.

Perhaps the answer lies beyond the classroom in much more natural, developmental settings that promote experiential learning, improve social skills and physical fitness, teach kids to take calculated risks in a safe environment, and expand the creative mind. With the current trend in our education system, we are leaving little room for innovation.

What's more, institutionalizing children endangers the ages and stages of childhood development and threatens the maturation process that produces healthy, productive adults.

So, how do we solve the problem of summer learning loss without jeopardizing the well-being and future success of our children and our country? Don't we indeed want child- centric systems that understand growth and development in order to raise healthy, productive contributing adults? We need to develop "learning environments." Childhood is not passive; it isn't meant to happen inside a box, and children are natural learners if appropriate environments

childhood left, because their play time, their creative time, has been steadily eroding since the '80s, and in the home stretch of the first decade of the 21st century, many seem singularly focused on claiming the rest in the name of standardized test preparation.

It was innovative thinkers who made this country great. Where would we be without the creative minds of individuare provided. Summer camp certainly sentence. Who says learning shouldn't als like former President Bill Clinton, 60 fits into that equation. In fact, camp is be fun? As adults, we often equate play Minutes journalist/host Mike Wallace, a solution to many of the gaps in our with being frivolous and without value, current education system. It teaches val- but fun is no four-letter word. It is learn- and composer Stephen Sondheim, all of whom went to camp? And what would ues such as self-esteem, teamwork, and ing in action. you wager that none of them ever said, caring, areas where traditional schools The American Academy of Pediatrics sometimes cause more detriment than said, "Play is essential to development as "It was the act of answering multiple choice test questions that got me where good. And it allows everyone, not just it contributes to the cognitive, physical, the "A" student and the athlete, to thrive social, and emotional well-being of chil- I am today?"

There are thousands of summer and enjoy the process of learning. Dr. dren and youth." Play, being absolutely camps across this country, and each Stephen Fine, academic and camp own- critical to optimal childhood developone of them is a piece of the solution er, whose 2005 Ph.D. thesis examined ment, has even been recognized by the to summer learning loss. Kids learn at residential summer camp as a unique United Nations High Commission for camp. They learn life skills that will last learning experience, said, "Kids who find Human Rights as a right of every child. long after the lessons learned in tradiit difficult to learn in another setting will If we insist on "warehousing" our often succeed at camp." children in year-round school and taking tional schools have faded into a hodgepodge of disjointed dates and sketchy Relegating our children to year-round away more of this developmentally apschool would be tantamount to a jail propriate time, they will literally have no equations.

Childhood is not passive; it isn't meant to happen inside a box, and children are natural learners if appropriate environments are provided. Summer camp certainly fits into that equation.

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CAMPY MOVIES

Troop Beverly Hills (1989)

The Hays Free Press and News-Dispatch staff brainstormed what we thought were some of the most memorable movies about summer camp. So to get all the happy campers in the mood for new summer experiences, we offer these picks.

Movie descriptions and images from IMDB.com

A soon to be divorced Beverly Hills socialite is determined to prove to her husband and herself that she can finish what she starts out to do, by becoming a den mother to a troop of Beverly Hills Girl Scouts.

Moonrise Kingdom

(2012) Set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, a young boy and girl fall in love and are moved to run away together. Various factions of the town mobilize to search for them and the town is turned upside down – which might not be such a bad thing.

Camp (2003) Friday the 13th (1980)

One summer at Camp Crystal Lake, a group of young counselors begin to get ready to lead campers. Unfortunately for the former, someone isn't happy about what's going on in the camp and enjoys playing kill the counselor. As bodies fall to the ground in the camp, no one is safe.

After a series of Broadway flops, songwriter Bert Hanley (Dixon) goes to work at a musical camp for young performers. Inspired by the kids who are misfits in their lives back home and are dealing with an array of personal struggles, he finds an opportunity to regain success by staging an altogether new production.

Heavyweights (1995)

Plump kids are lured into joining a posh fat camp with the promise of quick weight loss and good times, only to find that the facility is a woodland hellhole run by a psycho ex-fitness instructor.

The Parent Trap

(1998, or 1961 if you prefer) Identical twins Annie and Hallie, separated at birth and each raised by one of their biological parents, later discover each other for the first time at summer camp and make a plan to bring their wayward parents back together.

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Addams Family Values (1993)

When an adorable baby boy is added to the Addams household, Wednesday and Pugsley do not hate the baby, they just aren’t necessarily excited about his existence.

Ok, yeah they do hate the baby. So Wednesday and Pugsley must get rid of the new addition one way or another. Meanwhile a new nanny is added to the household who overtakes Fester. The Addams must stop the nanny, but how?

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But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)

Megan is an all-American girl. She’s a cheerleader and has a boyfriend, but she doesn’t like kissing him very much, and she’s pretty tactile with her cheerleader friends, and she only has pictures of girls up in her locker. Her parents and friends conclude that she *must* be gay and send her off to “sexual redirection” school, full of admittedly homosexual misfits, where she can learn how to be straight. Will Megan be turned around to successful heterosexuality, or will she succumb to her love for the beautiful Graham?

Meatballs

(1979) Summer camp highjinks centers around a camp counselor with a wacky sense of humor. He tries to help the campers have a good time. One camper named Rudy poses a particular challenge as he has a self-esteem problem.

American Pie Presents: Band Camp

(2005) Matt Stifler, the younger brother of the legendary Steve Stifler, who made it big as Hollywood porn-producer and shamelessly ignores the idolizing kid brother. When Matt gets caught redhanded for a prank with the school band’s instruments, high school counselor Sherman ‘Sherminator’ finds great pleasure in taking revenge on him for the misbehavior. Instead of expelling him, he condemns him to take part in band camp at Great Oaks, where Jim Levenstein’s still understanding dad is filling in for the feared problem counselor.

AWESOME SUMMER CAMPS 11 Different Camps to Choose From!

Rockets, Robots, Chemistry, Spies, Yuckology, Invention and More! austin.madscience.org

2009 - 2018 Fun and Hand-on Camps!

John Knox Ranch Rally Day! Summer Camp Open House

Day Camps Resident Camps Saturday, March 23, 2019 Family Camps 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Early Bird Pricing

Come meet the staff and enjoy a free lunch.

Locations All Over Town Half-day & Full day Camps For Ages 4-12

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Walking tours of the camp 10 a.m. to noon.

Sports and games at the outdoor pavilion.

Noon welcome from the director and lunch 12:30 Silly songs and singing 1 p.m. Camp Activities Open!

Explore the ranch and participate in activities with your family. Activities include:

Wonder World

• Blue Hole family photos with professional photographer Bob Owen!

• Hay Rides • Archery • Canoeing • Screamer (Big Swing!)

MAD SCIENCE OFFERS EXCITING:

512-892-1143

AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS • ASSEMBLIES • BIRTHDAY PARTIES • WORKSHOPS SPECIAL EVENTS • SPRING BREAK & SUMMER CAMPS• PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS

This is a drop-in event. Come for all or part. Register for camp with Lori at the office. See you this summer!

johnknoxranch.org (830) 935-4568

1661 John Knox Road • Fischer, Texas

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2019 SUMMER CAMPS AND PROGRAMS P S CAM ON ION LIT TLE EK •Creek CRE Golf Camp • Camp Onion • Little Onions Camp P ON ION CAM P CAMLab KI NG Kids • COO CAM PCamp Swing Splash • Cooking • Maker TEN NIS P • Camp CAM F& GOL

For more information on Membership or to inquire about Summer camps, please call the Front Desk at 512.282.2150 or via email at info@onioncreekclub.com

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JOIN ONION CREEK CLUB BY MAY 31ST AND YOUR CHILD CAN ENJOY A WEEK OF KID’S CAMP ONION CREEK! www.HaysFreePress.com

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