Construct a mini-building! Experiment with electricity (safely)! Be a history detective! Listen to stories of days gone by and tell a few of your own! Preserve, recycle and help the environment all at the same time! These are some of the many fun things kids can do this summer at the Oberlin Heritage Center's camps for kids. Parents can save $5 per child per week-long camp or $2 per single-day camp when registering their children by June 11.
This summer, the Oberlin Heritage Center will offer a variety of week long and one-day camps for boys and girls ages 8 to 17. The programs are designed to stimulate children's creativity and to whet their appetites for history, architecture, art, crafts, games, and the tastes and sounds of other cultures and other times.
The classes are held at the air-conditioned Oberlin Depot at 240 South Main Street, with some walking field trips to interesting places nearby. For all sessions, children should bring a bag lunch. Simple snacks are provided.
Register Online or download the flyer attached below.
Session I: Junior Docent Camp, June 21 to 25 (for ages 13 to 17). This camp will introduce young people who are interested in community service and leadership to techniques of greeting visitors, giving tours, teaching historic games, and much more. Following completion of the week-long session, participants can assist with various tours, special events and programs as their schedules permit. If the student completes fifteen hours of service for the Heritage Center by the end of 2010, $50 of the participation fee will be reimbursed. The hours for this camp are 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Note: this camp will be held in the Jewett House of the Oberlin Heritage Center, not at the Oberlin Depot.
History for the Day Camps: July 27 to 30
One-day camps on specific topics are designed to help meet badge requirements for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and will also appeal to children who are not in a scouting program. Each session is from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Session II: What Makes America Special? (Tuesday, July 27). This program for boys ages 8 to 10 is
designed in accordance with Bear level Cub Scout badge requirements. Participants will tour Oberlin and visit historic homes, hear stories about famous and infamous residents, learn about Ohio's history and state symbols and share how they can become good citizens.
Session III: The Past is Exciting and Important (Wednesday, July 28). This program for boys ages 8 to 10 is designed in accordance with Bear level Cub Scout badge requirements. Scouts will have fun with history by visiting a historic site, digging through old newspapers, making a journal, and trying historic games.
Session IV: Local Lore (Thursday, July 29). This program for girls ages 8 to 11 is designed in accordance with Junior Girl Scout badge requirements. Activities will include exploring town with a guide, visiting a museum, and being a history detective to figure out how things have changed using historic maps and photographs.
Session V: Junior & Cadette Camp (Friday, July 30) This program for girls in grades 4 through 8 will tie together themes from the "It's Your World - Change It" Journey and the "Women Through Time" Interest Project to focus on women from Oberlin's past: how they lived, how they were treated, and what they felt. Activities will include a history tour, reading journals and letters from women in the past, and trying hands-on activities that were part of women's everyday life in the 1800s.
Hands on History Week-Long Summer Day Camps
These camps are designed for children ages 8 to 13. Each session is from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Friday there is a program at 4 p.m. for the children to share what they have learned with their families and friends.
Session VI: Local Inventors and Innovators Camp, August 2 - August 6. Boys and girls will put on their thinking caps while learning about people from Oberlin and Ohio who invented new technology and pioneered new ideas. Camp will include hands-on experiments, creative puzzle-solving, walking excursions around town, and performing a short play about Oberlin's famous inventor, Charles Martin Hall.
Session VII: Green Camp, August 9 - August 13. Students will learn to appreciate the environment around them through eco-friendly activities while trying to produce as little waste as possible. They will not only learn the "Three R's" (reduce, reuse, recycle), but will put them into practice. Activities include the creation of recycled art projects and field trips to local places that have made a priority of putting the earth's resources first. Kids are encouraged to bring lunches in reusable containers and reusable water bottles for drinks.
Session VIII: Architecture, August 16 - August 20. Campers will enjoy learning about architecture and the design profession by exploring local buildings and their unique details, trying architectural drawing and building activities, constructing mini-buildings, and meeting with an architect. Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts attending this camp will complete some requirements for Architecture badges and Interest Projects.
Meet our great teachers! Liz Schultz is the Museum Education and Tour Coordinator for the Oberlin Heritage Center. She graduated with degrees in archaeology and anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Binghamton University (NY). Liz then earned a M.A. in museum studies with a focus in museum education from the Cooperstown Graduate Program (NewYork). Liz enjoys inspiring curiosity, creativity, and an appreciation for diverse cultures, past and present. Maria Surovy is a middle school social studies teacher at The Ratner School in Pepper Pike. She has taught Oberlin Heritage Center summer camps for several years. Mrs. Surovy is a graduate of the University of Dayton with a degree in secondary education in history and political science and has a M.S. degree in Historic Preservation from Ball State (Indiana). She taught for one year in Saipan in the Northern Marianas Islands and has traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe. She attended a 2005 Gilder Lehrman Institute at Cambridge University on the Cold War. Assisting Liz and Maria will be Mary Moroney, who grew up in Oberlin and has helped at several camps in the past as a Leadership Lorain County summer intern. She is a recent graduate of Ohio University's College of Education.
Please contact Museum Education and Tour Coordinator Liz Schultz for additional information or to inquire about early drop off or late pick up for an extra hourly fee. She can be reached at 440-774-1700 or by e-mail at [email protected].
See the Event Calendar or the attached flyer for more information. Registration is available online or by mail.