Clothing Labels
One FAQ that parents (especially first year families!) ask as they prepare for camp is, “How do I label everything for camp?” This is a great question and an important one. At GAC, we ask that all items (clothing, water bottles, toothpaste, etc.) are labeled prior to your camper’s arrival. If a camper misplaces something or an item is mixed up in the laundry, if it’s labeled, it will most likely end up back with the camper.
Label types have varied over the years: iron-on, marked by hand, and stick-on. All of the GAC directors have children who attend camp and have firsthand knowledge of the different label types and techniques and can commiserate with the frustration of discovering 10 labels (2o+ if they have siblings!) stuck to the inside of the washing machine! Based on experience, we are recommending the following label options in order of preference:
- Use a permanent marker (aka “Sharpie”) to write the camper’s first initial and last name. This is an easy and cost effective method. Be sure to be consistent with the labeling and avoid the use of initials only. Tip: use a silver marker for dark clothing!
- Iron-on labels work well. It’s a time consuming task but those pre-made labels tend to stay on longer than stick-on labels and won’t damage items that don’t have clothing tags.
- Stick-on labels are great for non-clothing items such as toiletries, shoes, and flashlights. Even the youngest campers can help with this labeling task!
Which ever method you choose, just remember to label everything, even socks and undies!
Join Sunshine’s Happy Campers Book Club
Happy Campers is a joyful and wise parenting book. Drawing on her lifetime of experience as a camper, camp counselor and camp director, Audrey Monke shows us what is most important in the lives of children. She then takes the next step and teaches parents how they can recreate the magic of camp in their own homes. I have never read a more optimistic and well-grounded guide to parenting.
–Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D., Bestselling author of Raising Cain
Keep the growth and happiness of summer camp going all year! Join author Audrey “Sunshine” Monke in the Happy Campers Book Club as she shares resources and ideas from her book, Happy Campers, 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults!
To join the Happy Campers Book Club
Step 1: Pick up a copy of Happy Campers at your favorite book seller: Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Books-A-Million, or KOBO
Step 2: Complete this form, and you’ll be sent exclusive downloadable resources and monthly links to join (optional) Zoom coaching calls with Sunshine.
Free Happy Campers Downloads
2020 Read-Along Schedule
Workbook & Discussion Guide
Happy Campers Book Trailer (featuring GAC campers & staff)
2020 Dance Themes!
One of the highlights of each session is our camp-wide dance. We all come together at our Granite Grove event space for a night of kicking our heels up to some of our favorite songs.
Dances feature favorite group dances, like Footloose and Tragedy. There’s also our photo booth for some pictures with friends, special snacks and drinks like the “Soy Rogers” and “Shirley Chipmunk,” and a wide selection of games for those campers that prefer playing over dancing.
Each of our dances has a theme, and campers and staff are encouraged to dress up to match the theme. Some people bring costumes from home, while others improvise using their clothes or making something at Arts & Crafts. Whatever you choose to do, we know you’ll have a great time at our dances.
This year’s dance themes are:
June Shaver Specialty: Hollywood
Come as your favorite celebrity or dress to impress as one of your favorite movie characters for this fun SoCal themed party!
Session 1: Pirates
Shiver me timbers matey! Session 1 campers will be walking the plank to fun with their peg-legs, eye patches, and other pirate accessories.
Session 2: Groovy Hippies and Tie-Dye
Let’s have some far-out fun in Session 2, when we enjoy the dance with our best hippie costumes, or your tie-dyed favorites.
Session 3: Halloween
Having a hard time coming up with a costume for Session 3’s Halloween dance? Any costume will do as we celebrate the one night of the year when people love costumes as much as we do on dance night.
Session 4: Winter Wonderland
It’ll be the end of August, but we’re going to dress like a blizzard is on the way for our Winter Wonderland dance for Session 4.
Mini Camp and August Specialty: Candy Land
It’s a night for sweet treats as we end the summer with a dance celebrating candy, or the board game Candy Land!
Sunshine Visits Chandler School This Thursday
This Thursday, November 14, 2019, Sunshine will be spending time with parents and friends of Chandler School in Pasadena, CA. Her talk on “Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults” is part of their ParentEd series, which also features two of Sunshine’s favorite parenting educators – Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D. & Julie Lythcott-Haims.
If you are in the Pasadena area and want more information, please click here. We hope to see you there!
#OptOutside
Join Us In Opting Outside
This year, we’re thrilled once again to join with REI, the outdoor equipment co-op, to encourage you to opt outside on Black Friday. REI gives its employees a paid day off instead of opening for the crush of people looking for deals the day after Thanksgiving and encourages other organizations to do the same. They also started the #OptOutside hashtag as a way for people to share what they’re doing in nature.
We love the idea of #OptOutside because it matches so wonderfully with our Core Values, specifically that we want children to “experience the awe of nature.” We hope that you’ll join with us in spending time outside on Friday, November 29th. If you take pictures, you can share them on social media using the hashtag #OptOutside. We’d love it if you also tagged us (@goldarrowcamp) so that we can see what you’re doing outside. We’ll share our favorite GAC family #OptOutside pictures on our social media channels.
If you’d like more information on the Opt Outside movement, visit REI’s Opt Outside website.
Raise Thriving Kids Workshop – September 27 in Newport Beach
Make this the happiest, most connected and growth-filled year ever for your family!
Raise Thriving Kids Workshop
Port Streets Clubhouse
1900 Port Carlow Place
Newport Beach
Friday, September 27
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Port Streets Clubhouse
1900 Port Carlow Place
Newport Beach
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Join Audrey “Sunshine” Monke and Sara Kuljis for a 1-Day LIVE parenting workshop in Newport Beach, California.
What you’ll learn during this workshop
• Creating the Family Culture You Want by learning how to move your actions closer to your values and determining what kind of family you want to build.
• Raising Successful, Thriving Kids means defining what success for your kids looks like, what character traits you seek to foster, and how to help them become thriving adults.
• Building Your Positive Parenting Toolbox that includes skills like Authoritative Parenting, Connection Before Correction, Play & Fun, and the Power of Affirmation.
• Loving The Child You Have by harnessing the power of Positive Language – Behavior Management, Calming Skills for Ourselves & Our Kids – Internal Chatter, Empathy, and Compassion.
Your Investment of $250 Includes
• A signed copy of Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults
• A binder full of parenting resources and activities to support you in raising thriving kids
• Four follow-up group Zoom coaching calls with Audrey and Sara
• Lunch
• Discussions & advice that will improve your parenting and make your family life happier and more connected
Space Dance!
Last night, everyone at camp came down to Granite Grove in their best space attire to celebrate the end of an incredible Mini Camp session at GAC! Enjoy some photos below!
Big Campfire
“Big Campfire” is a highlight of the session for campers here at GAC. At Big Campfire, each cabin group performs a skit, song, or dance. The evening provides a fun opportunity for kids to work together to provide a fun, entertaining performance for the community.
Our younger campers (Bears & Tigers) celebrated Big Campfire on Saturday evening, and our older kids (Lions & Eagles) had their Big Campfire on Monday evening. Here are a few highlights from this session’s Big Campfires:
Western Dance!
Tonight, everyone at camp came down to Granite Grove in their best Western attire to celebrate the end of an incredible Session 4 at GAC! Enjoy the highlights below!
Whadda Week!
Session 4 campers have had an awesome first week at GAC. The singing has been loud and the dancing ubiquitous! We are also doing a whole lot of bucket filling.
One of our favorite ways to fill each other’s buckets has been writing WOWs. Each morning at assembly, Cheerio reads a few of the WOWs from the previous day, and then all of the notes are delivered in the camp mail. WOWs are a fun camp tradition that reminds us to thank, compliment, and celebrate each other.
Whadda Day! Podcast
Our daily podcast features campers and staff talking about what’s happening at GAC. Campers (usually with their cabin group) serve as hosts for our daily update, which is usually recorded right after Morning Assembly. You can listen or subscribe here.
Episodes so far this session:
Stat of the Day
A new and fun addition to morning assembly 2019 has been the “Stat of the Day.” Each day, Soy and the other hosts present a stat challenge question. Each cabin group can put one guess into the yellow “Stat of the Day” box. The winning guess gets the special “Stat of the Day” trophy on their dining table for the next day. A few of the fun stat questions this week included how many emails came in to campers on one day and how many boats there are at GAC.
Special Events
We love having special celebrations here at camp. They give us an excuse to dress up (or stay in our jammies) and socialize with kids outside of our own cabin groups. Here are a few picture & video highlights from some of this week’s special events:
Pajama Breakfast
Cabin Theme Day
Tigers Social/Bingo Night
Crazy Cranium Day
Bears Adventure
Coming up in Week 2
We’ve got more fun planned for the second week of Session 4 including Big Campfires, the Carnival, International Day, the Western Dance, the Paddle Campfire Ceremony for our graduating campers, and our end-of-session celebration banquet and Appreciation Campfire.
We’re also going to be focusing on some important friendship skills, including asking questions & listening, staying calm, and being a great friend.
The second week of the session always flies by here at GAC, and we are going to make the most of our time together by remembering to have fun, make friends, and grow!
Be sure to download the Campanion App if you want to view photos and keep up with this week’s news on your phone!