Happy Campers at Home

Happy Campers: 9 Secrets That May Help You Get Through This Challenging Year

 

Audrey “Sunshine” Monke, GAC’s Chief Visionary Officer, wrote Happy Campers to give parents encouragement and share research-backed ideas for creating some camp “magic” at home. With most camps and other programs not operating this summer, and many vacation plans canceled, we’ll be with our kids a lot this summer.

Why not try some simple strategies for creating more connection and fun at home? Sign up to get weekly emails (10 total) with tips from the book plus BONUS research and ideas Sunshine has learned since writing Happy Campers.

If you’re on Facebook, Join the Happy Campers Group for more discussion of the topics covered in the book.

HERE ARE SOME FREE DOWNLOADS TO GET YOU STARTED ON YOUR HAPPY CAMPERS JOURNEY:

Free Chapter: Camp Secret #1: Connection Comes First

9-week Reading Schedule

Workbook & Discussion Guide

Sign up for your weekly emails here!

 

Parenting in Place Masterclass Series

Are you stressed about summer and wondering how your family will manage? Are you completely burned out from the demands placed on you as a parent in recent months? Are you craving practical strategies for helping your child (and your family) thrive and prepare for what’s next?

If so, please join us for a special live masterclass series designed to help you this summer: Parenting in Place: Helping Families Thrive in Challenging Times.

This new series comes from a group of parenting experts, therapists, authors, educators, and neuroscientists who’ve come together to share their very best strategies and ideas for how you and your family can thrive this summer. 

Parenting in Place features 9 weekly masterclasses (hosted on Zoom) through June and early August, each focused on a different theme, and each including specific takeaways and strategies. 

Because the event is live, attendees will have the opportunity to ask the hosts questions and communicate with other attendees through chat. 

There is also a bundle of free bonus content (downloadables, templates, webinars) from their speakers, and created a closed moderated Facebook group so together you can keep the conversation going throughout the duration of the event.

Here’s the whole line-up for the live webinars:

Live events will be held on Wednesdays at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT, but registrants will have access to replays in case they can’t attend live.  

This event is meant to be accessible as possible and they recognize the difficult position many families find themselves in these days. 

Therefore, they’re offering the entire series— 9-week series of live classes, the bonus bundle, and the closed Facebook community—for only $29. Once the event begins on June 10, the cost will go up to $39.

10% of the proceeds for the Masterclass will be donated to charity to support Covid-19 and social justice-related work.

To register for Parenting in Place, click on this link. It all gets started on June 10!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Parent Debrief

Following the announcement of our heartbreaking decision to cancel our 2020 GAC sessions, we have set up an online meeting for parents next week to debrief, offer support to one another, and find out how we can help you and your family moving forward.

A link to join our parent community on Tuesday, May 19 at 12pm PT, was sent in our announcement email on May 13 and again in a resource email sent May 14.  If you need the details to access the parent debrief next week, please contact us at mail@goldarrowcamp.com or (800) 554-2267.

How to make a GAC Face Mask

Hey Campers,

Here are two different ways to make a no-sew face mask. Use a GAC t-shirt or bandana to show your GAC spirit while you keep yourselves and others safe. Send us pictures of you in your GAC face mask,  and we’ll share here and on social media! Use #gackindness as your hashtag.

Have fun making masks!

P.S. Remember, you can still smile and be friendly, even behind a mask! Practice kindness every day!

Instructions for No Sew T-shirt Face Mask

Time lapse video of Sunshine making a Happy Campers t-shirt face mask

And Sunshine wearing the finished t-shirt mask:

The bandana version

Step by step instructions with illustrations: https://blog.japanesecreations.com/no-sew-face-mask-with-handkerchief-and-hair-tie

Time lapse video of Sunshine making a GAC bandana mask

And Sunshine wearing the finished bandana mask (Please send in your pics so we can add them!!)

At assembly, Sunshine talked about why we wear face masks during this pandemic. Here’s the graphic she talked about from Worry Proof M.D.:

Wash Your Hands the GAC Way!

In the current health enviornment, we are all acutely aware of how important it is to wash our hands. Here at GAC, we wanted to give you a fun way to make sure you’re washing your hands for the right amount of time. That’s why we put together this handy graphic! Now you can keep your hands clean and think about camp all at the same time!

Download and print GAC Handwashing

Homeschooling Help!

For many of us, one of the biggest challenges in having our kids home full-time during this pandemic is finding ourselves in the role of homeschooling parent. Audrey “Sunshine” Monke, GAC’s Chief Visionary Officer, has compiled some resources to help. To view the videos and access the resources, click on the links below.

Would you like some resources? 

Creative ideas for parents of younger kids (preschool-early elementary) from GAC Camp Director Alison Moeschberger

Homeschool strategies from an experienced homeschool parent (all ages, but many resources for kids through middle school)

 

On her website (Sunshine Parenting) and her podcast, Sunshine is sharing many resources to encourage and support parents during this pandemic. To access those resources, sign up to receive her weekly emails or subscribe to her podcast.

Help Us Name Our New Lip Balms!

At Gold Arrow Camp, we are passionate about lip protection! We’re so passionate that every year we have fun-named lip balms for our camp store. Past winners have included hits like Zip Lime, Tropical Trout, and Knee Ski Grape. This year is no different! Once again, we invite you to think up the best camp-inspired name for the following lip balm featured flavors and send them to us. How? You could email us, or you could post it to either Instagram or Facebook and tag us (@goldarrowcamp). We will also be taking suggestions on our Instagram story on Monday, March 9! We can’t wait to see what your creativity comes up with this year!

This year’s featured flavors are:

Friendship Skills at GAC

Hello GAC families! We have created a friendship skills survey for you to complete. This information will help us tailor our friendship activities at camp this summer so that it will be most helpful to our camp families. Thank you for taking a couple of minutes to fill this out. We look forward to your feedback! Please click here to complete the survey!

Unplug with GAC!

Again this year, Gold Arrow Camp will be participating in the National Day of Unplugging. This day is a movement to encourage people to get a “24-hour respite from technology.”

The National Day of Unplugging encourages people to use 24 hours free from technology to connect with “ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.” Wow. That sounds an awful lot like camp. We love the idea of unplugging (just for a little bit) at home so that we can reforge the kind of connections there that we forge at camp, where we’re totally free from the burden of technology.

You can join us in celebrating by pledging to #unplug on social media, sharing this news story, or even hosting an unplugged event! You could host an old-fashioned dinner party, spend Saturday the 7th working on puzzles or playing board games. You can even have a sleepover without phones!

If you have plans to unplug, please tag us in those on your social media. We’d love to share your plans (and what you did, after the fact, of course) on our social media!

National No One Eats Alone Day

 

“No One Eats Alone is a Positive Prevention Initiative that works to prevent bullying before it starts by teaching students to lead the movement to change the culture of middle school!”

National No One Eats Alone Day is February 14, 2020! This popular national program is celebrated in many schools across the country and is a student-led event. It is a day where all kids feel included and accepted by their peers. Would you like to have your school participate? We encourage you to partner with a teacher and click here to sign up where you can request a No One Eats Alone Day backpack. The backpack will help you launch your own NOEAD at your school! If you’re not sure if your school is already registered, see here!