News

Strength Spotting: Becoming Your Best Self

February 23, 2021

We are excited to be able to offer some of the friendship and fun from camp in a new setting - Outschool! Gold Arrow Camp has recently become a partner organization with Outschool in order to teach our own courses on their platform. Outschool is a wonderful marketplace that offers live online classes for children. There is a variety of over 100,000 live online classes to choose from and we are thrilled to offer one of those (& hopefully many more soon)!

Our first course offering, Strength Spotting: Becoming Your Best Self, includes some of the most popular activities from our Junior Counselor workshop on character strengths and was also a well-received part of our online camp sessions last summer. Led by long-time year-round staffer and strengths guru Delta, the course helps kids identify their strengths and learn to lean into them as they navigate school, friendships, and life. It’s a one-hour course that promises to be exciting and social.

If you would like to sign up for our character strengths course, use this link to get a $20 credit toward your first Outschool enrollment. Once you sign up with Outschool, the credit will automatically be applied to your first course. Check out all of the great academic and non-academic courses offered on Outschool, and we’ll let you know when we have more of our courses available for you.

We hope to see you in one of our upcoming strengths courses!

New GAC Program – GACpacking!

February 2, 2021

Does your camper enjoy backpacking and hiking in nature? If so, this program is a wonderful way to do all of that and more. GACpacking provides an introduction to backpacking skills and life on the trail in a fun and compact one-week trip. Our GACpacking program is designed to serve as a bridge between the one-night backpacking experience offered as a regular part of our camp program and the Outdoor Leadership Course. On the trail, our hikers will have the opportunity to prepare their own meals, practice map and compass navigation, apply Leave No Trace principles and ethics, participate in sustainable backcountry living, and study wildlife biology. Each day there will also be time for reflection, dialogue, and discussion. For more information about the GACpacking program, please visit https://goldarrowcamp.com/why-gac/gacpacking/ or email mail@goldarrowcamp.com with any questions.

Bring more connection, fun, & social emotional growth to your school this year with GATA!

January 27, 2021

PLEASE SHARE ABOUT GATA (Gold Arrow Teacher Academy) WITH THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR AT YOUR SCHOOL!

The webinars are great reminders of super valuable information that I’ve heard/read over the years. I love the chance to apply this information in a new teaching role. I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow with like-minded people.

-Abbey, Teacher & GATA Member

This school year, GAC Directors are bringing the trainings we do with counselors each summer to educators all across the country through GATA (Gold Arrow Teacher Academy) and through custom professional development webinars for schools. Gold Arrow’s entire director team has children of their own (currently ranging in age from 4-26), and most of us were teachers before or while working at camp. Supporting children by providing teachers with training and support to create positive, connected classrooms is a natural use of our skills and experiences (and is super fun for us). If you're looking for a personalized, engaging professional development workshop for your school team, get in touch. We'd love to create an upbeat workshop geared specifically to the needs of the students and teachers at your school. Contact us and let us know what you're interested in. GATA resources have been developed based over years of training our counselors and have been implemented successfully by GATA members over first half of this school year to support students' social and emotional well-being. The topics we're covering in GATA include:

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One Word

January 21, 2021

For each of us, 2020 held a lot of different moments and emotions. We have now entered 2021, which is a great time to sit back and reflect on all that was last year. Audrey "Sunshine" Monke, GAC's Chief Visionary Officer, shares with us an activity that your entire family can do together that encourages everyone to choose one word that will help to provide guidance, inspiration, and direction for the year. On her website (Sunshine Parenting) and her podcast, Sunshine shares many resources to encourage family time and reflection, among many other useful topics for parents. To access those resources, sign up to receive her weekly emails or subscribe to her podcast.