Winter Break Camp

Reading holiday cards at the New Year's Eve celebration at Winter Break Camp

The holiday season is upon us, so the kids who came to Winter Break Camp set their sights on a New Year’s Eve celebration.  There’s more than a week to go till the actual New Year’s Eve. No worries. The kids had a blast!

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Winter Break campers of all ages collaborated on a gingerbread village that included a train track & train

The week was spent prepping for the party. The kids made a charming gingerbread house village, drew with artist Joan Williams, made cookies from scratch (Mrs. Bender picked the egg shell out of the batter), and more. The cookies were quite the challenge: make the dough, roll it, cut shapes with cookie cutters and decorate the cookies.

Before the party, the older kids played musical chairs to rousing dance music

The day of the party, the table decorating campers set the tables with table clothes, handmade holiday cards, “champagne” glasses, and festive paper napkins. After a couple of games of musical chairs in the gym, the New Year’s Eve revelers headed over to the lunchroom.

Ms. White poured grape juice in those plastic champagne glasses 

At Ms. White’s suggestion, the kids read their cards to the whole room. Older kids wrote lengthier holiday messages, some of which needed a reader for the younger set. Pizza for lunch, and Ms. White poured grape juice. (It looked like a nice Merlot–just grape juice). Dessert followed: homemade cookies and marshmallow treats–all made by the campers.

A toast to the holidays and the new year!

Ms. White invited the kids to join her in raising their glasses of grape juice in a toast to the new year. Then, in unison the kids blew their noisemakers.  “You can all blow them at the same time, just once,” directed Ms. White. And so they did, exuberantly.

Noisemakers are a New Year's Eve tradition–the kids loved them

It was a really fun Winter Break camp with a variety of planned activities balanced with time to make your own fun. Mrs. Bender and Ms. White, co-directors of Forsyth’s Extended Day, put the program together. The nice thing about Forsyth Winter and Spring Break camps is that kids can stay for part or all of the day and are charged only for the time at camp (as opposed to a standard day rate). The flexibility of the program appeals to both campers and parents.

The Fillmore kids (Pre-K & Jr-K) played musical chairs with the big kids cheering them on