summer camp
Summer Camp 2019 – A Look Back
Every year, with the weather warming and the anticipation of the end of the school year, our CSC team looks forward to the summer camp program. Our Kindergarten Camp is always a favorite, and this year we added the Summer Brain Building Camp, which proved to be great fun for the kids and us!
Kindergarten Enrichment Summer Camp
K-Camp is such a joyful experience for the campers. For many of them, this is their first “camp” experience. That, combined with the anticipation of entering Kindergarten, creates excitement and glee for the children as they embark on their social learning journey.
While playing and making new friends, each camper was actually being challenged to build their capacity for adaptation and flexibility, supporting transitions between our sensory gym and classroom-like environments.
At the outset, each child engendered mindful attention, active listening, and presence to sculpt a grounded infrastructure. Such practices created a platform for social and emotional balance and regulation that promoted “whole body and brain” listening and engagement.
Our focus on learning stemmed from an array of structured, tabletop activities, to less structured, independent tasks that included sound/letter identification and pairing, rhyming, handwriting, word creation, and initial reading practices.
Through a social-emotional lens, we explored group plans and dynamics, problem-solving, expected and friendly ways of being, the sense of belonging, and further developed confidence and competence. Taking a look inward and building on self-reflective practices and attunement, each child began to expand their self-awareness and interpersonal skills. Through such dynamics emerged a child’s sense of openness, curiosity, and creativity to explore and build pathways for learning and academics, motor skill development, play, and social-emotional integration.
Whew! That said, the kids had a blast laughing, playing, giggling, and making friends and memories. Good luck new kindergarteners – you got this!
Social Brain Building Summer Camp
New this year to CSC’s summer camp program, was Social Brain Building Camp. Designed for children entering 1st grade in the fall, this camp invites children to exercise their imaginations, and role play while having fun building dynamic social skills that prepare them for successful relationships in 1st grade…and life!
Campers attending CSC’s Social Brain Building Camp embarked on their social-emotional journey with eagerness to make new friends, enjoy physical activity, and learn the fundamentals of “we-thinking”. These were big challenges that the group worked on through various fun activities, including building a rocket ship to go to the moon, painting and coloring emotions, playing board games, watching interactive social skills videos, having a shaving cream party, and performing space man exercises.
The camp’s goal was to develop social and emotional balance, regulation for first time listening, and cooperative conversational skills. Taking a look inward and building on self-reflective practices and attunement, each child began to expand their self-awareness and interpersonal skills. Campers began to take charge of their own emotions by identifying their feelings, utilizing the “take a break space” when needed for re-centering, and using their words to communicate their needs to peers.
Each week helpful hints were sent to parents to support and encourage ongoing social learning within the home.
Overall, the children at both camps, created a toolbox that shaped the development of the brain and body, enhancing capacity for social relationships, emotional experiences, and cognitive opportunities on the learning journey.
Social Learning Prepares Children for First and Second Grade
Your kindergartner or first grader works hard at school. Not only are there academic expectations, but your child needs to self-regulate in order to manage the various social expectations. Whether following planned group activities, transitioning from one activity to another, using spoken language to share ideas, taking turns, listening when others speak, or managing big feelings and big energy, social brain building is imperative for success.
Your child wants to belong, feel connected, solve problems, share ideas and work within a group, but it doesn’t always happen naturally. Often a child needs the “just-right” support for their individual make up, to be able to build the foundational skills of self-regulation and flexible thinking, then be able to put them into practice within a group environment.
Children who struggle with self-regulation and flexible thinking in kindergarten or first grade often enter the next grade level with anxiety or struggles with:
- Making transitions
- Managing big feelings and energy levels
- Talking out of turn or grabbing
- Negotiating and compromising
- “Plugging in” to group plans and processes
Could your child use a boost in their Social Brain Building this summer?
Child Success Center’s social learning specialist, Patty Ramsey, LMFT, has designed a 2-week summer enrichment camp that will help campers gain the social skills and confidence they need for successful relationships in first or second grade.
With a plan designed and implemented by CSC’s skilled and compassionate occupational therapists and speech and language pathologists, this summertime fun adventure will allow children to make use of their boundless imaginations and the power of play. As a team, they’ll “create” their “campsite” and problem solve camp themed scenarios, like what they would need to pack for a camping adventure, how they’d get there, what they would do once they got there, what they would take to eat and what they would see.
Campers will use their imagination to guide them on their journey –
destination unknown – of fun, adventure and team building!
Are there resources available for parent support of social brain building at home?
Social Brain Building Summer Camp will provide visuals, activities, and education on key ways for parents to help support a child’s ongoing social learning. Additionally, one parent education session, presented by Patty Ramsey, will be available for more in-depth supports.
Learn more about Social Brain Building Summer Camp
Year round Social Brain Building and Friendship Club at CSC
post updated January 28, 2020
Is Kindergarten Camp a Fit For Your Child?
Kindergarten Camp will help your child discover his love for learning!
Kindergarten Camp is for any child that has one (1) of the following needs:
- Support in the transition to kindergarten
- Skills when adapting to a new environment
- Creation of meaning and enjoyment while learning
- Development of handwriting and fine motor activities
- Identification of phonological awareness and early reading processes
- Focus on academics while being at a developmental preschool
By taking an educational therapy approach and incorporating research-based programs, the Child Success Center Kindergarten Enrichment Camp offers your child a unique, summer learning experience, while having great fun in our state-of-the-art sensory motor gym in Los Angeles, California.
K-CAMP is an individualized experience, with highly trained learning specialists looking at the “whole child” while meeting the specific needs of each child. Campers will work with a learning specialist to explore their learning journey. During the K-CAMP learning adventure, each child will be helped to develop confidence when taking the first steps toward reading, writing, attending to a new routine and being socially involved. Our approach allows visual and auditory integration, providing the child with a thorough learning experience and understanding from many areas of the brain.
K-CAMP provides a balance of educational, classroom-like experiences and positive social development opportunities. Our team utilizes the hugely effective Social Thinking® (Attributed to Michelle Garcia Winner as creator of the Social Thinking Methodology) curriculum that builds the body & brain awareness that is supportive to learning exploration. Our gymnasium provides a fun, interactive and comfortable learning environment for children. With success comes the joy of seeing your child adapt to new circumstances, thrive socially, develop the necessary skills to succeed in school and learn effectively and happily.
K-CAMP will ignite your child’s learning journey whether the goal is remediation of skills and/or enrichment, all while having great summer fun!
Much of the CSC Kindergarten Camp program is based on the following areas of learning and acquisition of skills.
- Social Thinking® & Whole-Body Listening – develops skills in focusing, listening, auditory cohesion and attending to the body in group and learning situations. Addressing whole-body listening can allow the child to understand the role of their brain in an array of experiences. (this is incorporated in all learning endeavors)
- Auditory Discrimination – increases the understanding and ability to discern between the differences in sounds. Sounds make up words which make up sentences and passages. Discrimination is important in all areas of learning- reading, writing and visual/auditory integration. Understanding discrimination can often bring about comfort and confidence in the reading process.
- Auditory Memory – increases ability to develop phonemes, words and sentences and retain and recall information that is presented orally.
- Phonological Skills – evolve through learning sounds and developing phonological awareness through sound-symbol relationship, blending and segmentation, and incorporating visual, auditory and motion into the learning process.
- Handwriting – includes letter and number formation, sequencing, and development of healthy, adaptive handwriting practices.
EXPECTATIONS OF SCHOOLS
Common Core Standards have clearly upped the stakes when it comes to what skills your child will need to have in his academic and social tool belt upon entering Kindergarten. The expectations for these young children are high and include age appropriate proficiency in reading, writing, listening and collaboration. The CSC Kindergarten Camp program addresses all of these areas while maintaining a fun and stress-free environment your child will look forward to each day.
This program, including its teacher or leader, is not affiliated with, nor has it been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by Michelle Garcia Winner and Think Social Publishing, Inc.
Kindergarten Readiness Summer Camp 2015
Is your pre-schooler ready for Kindergarten in the Fall? Child Success Center is happy to announce our 6th consecutive summer of Kindergarten Readiness Camp!
While you might not even be thinking about summer vacation yet, it is definitely the time to start asking yourself if your pre-schooler will be ready for the move up to Kindergarten in the Fall. There’s more to it than you might imagine. Many parents are under the impression that Kindergarten is somewhat akin to preschool and that significant academics really don’t kick in until 1st or 2nd grade, but in newer times that is far from reality.
In recent years, California Kindergarten curriculum has shifted to become far more academically skewed than in past decades and now more than ever, it’s very important to have all children properly prepared for these greater new challenges. To successfully excel in their new setting, children must achieve and master certain educational and social skills to adequately adapt and grow in a more accountable and often faster paced setting.
Additionally, there are many aspects of kindergarten that will be new for your child. The school is bigger, there is more time sitting at a table, more focus on letters and numbers, time spent learning handwriting skills, more time listening and a lot more structure. The days are longer and there is often more independence required.
Parents might consider seeking counsel or advice from teachers or experts and possibly even have an evaluation for their child to ensure that educational and social skill development is on track for entry into Kindergarten in the fall. To help those who may need additional support, Child Success Center is happy to announce our 6th consecutive summer of Kindergarten Readiness Camp. This camp is designed to not only teach and prepare little ones, but also provide tons of fun while they’re learning.
Presented as individual weekly camps or a 2-week session, campers, in small groups of up to 8 children, will spend over 20 hours involved in activities designed to help them develop the foundational learning needed to feel confident entering Kindergarten. The program will help children develop confidence when taking the first steps toward reading, writing, attending to a new routine and making new friends. The huge gymnasium at Child Success Center will be turned into a summer fun learning camp with the aim of turning “learning” into “play”. The camp will feature swings, a trampoline, climbing wall and monkey bars, which will take children on an adventure and build up their kindergarten readiness skills. The program will also feature art, music and science activities that will inspire creative interests and will offer hands-on fun through touching, exploring and games.
Parents can enroll their children in a single weekly program, but enrollment in two or three week sessions will build stronger, lasting skills. Also, as a bonus, multiple week enrollees and those who bring a friend may be eligible for special discounts, so be sure to inquire when you call.
Each Week-long Session Will Teach Your Child To:
- Recognize letters and match them with a name and sound
- Master holding a pencil, marker or crayon
- Develop attention and listening skills
- Socialize and communicate
- Enjoy learning
DATES: Dates: Session 1: July 27 – July 31, 2015
Session 2: August 3 – Aug 7, 2015
Session 3: August 10 – August 14, 2015
TIMES: 8:45AM – 1 PM, Monday through Friday
AGE: Starting Kindergarten in the Fall
ENROLLMENT: Call the Child Success Center on 310.899.9597 or email: officemanager@childsuccesscenter.com
COST: Full Fee is $574 per week.
DISCOUNTS:
- Early Bird Discount: $495.00 per week, if registration and payment are received by Friday March 15, 2015.
- Multiple week discounts are available. Call for details.
- Discounts are also available if you bring along a sibling or friend. Call for details.
Handwriting Club at Child Success Center
Child Success Center Announces “Handwriting Club” for 2014
There has been some discussion recently about the viability and necessity of learning penmanship skills. Yet research shows that writing by hand engages the brain and is a vital component of literacy. Since handwritten testing throughout the school system is unlikely to change any time soon, learning to write quickly and clearly is an important means to an end. With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the emphasis and expectations placed on classroom note-taking and expository writing in grades K–5 is greater than ever.
Whether a child prints or uses cursive writing, it must be legible to convey correct test answers, thoughts, instructions, etc. throughout his academic career and life. Therefore “hand writing” is a skill that must be learned and serves many purposes besides legibility.
While we may take the ability to write correctly for granted, many support skills must first be learned requiring the hand, eyes and brain to work in harmony. This becomes more challenging when a child is experiencing a delay in certain areas of development. This in turn can leave a child with feelings of frustration, decreased confidence and success, and often results in avoidance of the very repetition necessary to build skill.
The years between the ages of 3 and 5 are the time your child will build the motor coordination required to develop the dexterity, hand strength and endurance to shift from a fisted grasp to an adult 3 finger, (tri-pod) dynamic grasp that will allow them to control the pencil with ease.
The “Handwriting Club” at Child Success Center is a program customized to meet each child’s needs. The program is designed and run by licensed and highly skilled Occupational Therapists and features multi-sensory strategies, whole brain learning, and the extremely successful Handwriting Without Tears® program.
For more information or to enroll, call the Child Success Center – 310.899.9597 or email: Enroll@childsuccesscenter.com
Read complete article: “Handwriting – A Dying Art or Important Skill?”– by Melissa Idelson, Director, Child Success Center
