We are back for Week 6! At our Glen Rock location, we had 44 campers join us! We loved seeing so many campers throughout the last few days.
We started camp with three games of Circle of Doom. In this fast paced game, campers dodge coaches’ throws and try to last the longest. The person with the most wins throughout the week earns a Circle of Doom prize.
In the circle of doom this week, Rayan and Jack won one round each for the first time this summer which was so exciting! Both of these campers had not yet secured a win this summer prior to these wins.
Bright and early on Tuesday morning, Anson, Zach, Luc, and Eden started trading Pokémon cards.
On Thursday, we got caught in the rain on the way to Circle of Doom, but we did not go back inside! Instead, we played our usual three rounds in a light drizzle. Some campers waited under their umbrellas when they got out of the round.
Then, we went back inside and campers split off into lesson groups. Campers study various grandmaster games, analyze personal matches, learn tactics, and solve puzzles.
In Coach Remy’s group, campers studied different basic endgame checkmates, such as checkmating with one queen or two rooks. All of the students grasped these checkmating patterns quite quickly, but Eddy knew how to do them right away! Students also learned how to play the 4 knights opening, along with the basic core principles behind any opening: development, center control, and castling. Along with learning basic tactics, these students created foundations to become great chess players in the future!
Coach Sean’s group continued to train their tactical eyes, pattern recognition, and calculation skills with a selection of different puzzles. Campers also analyzed their own games, along with high level grandmaster games. Jack dominated in points for most of the week, but Kian made it close by the end. Still, it was Jack who emerged victorious. Campers were also challenged to memorize at least one 30+ move grandmaster game. Jack and Anny both gave flawless presentations. Rayan excelled by memorizing multiple games with no mistakes. But it was Kian once again who continued his streak as the memory champion. Not only did he also memorize multiple games, but one of the games was over 120 moves! Impressive work by the whole group!
In between two lessons, campers were given a short snack break. After eating, they like to gather around the chess board and play a game or two with lots of commentary! Novak even decided to repurpose his fruit roll up wrapper by making a ninja headband!
Next, we returned outside again! Campers were separated into sports groups by age and participated in different sports activities for about 10-15 minutes before coming back together.
After sports groups, campers were given a choice of dodgeball, soccer, or playground and in larger groups, head to their activity of choice for a longer period of time.
In camper dodgeball, Kian, Rayan, Jack, John, and Aarav were lethal weapons! Each of them got many points from their catches and throws.
At soccer, Eddy, 6 years old, came very close to scoring a goal on Coach Francis! Everyone was very impressed, good job Eddie!
Following that, comes the most anticipated event of the day: coaches vs campers dodgeball. The coaches team is usually the victor of this game and did not disappoint this week! Even though there were certainly camper players to look out for, it wasn’t enough to beat our coaches!
Score: 5 coaches - 0 campers
After our outdoor activities, we returned inside for lunch and tournament. Campers are paired in either a rated or unrated tournament and compete for the most points. Their games are analyzed in their chess lessons the next morning.
At two o’clock, campers can decide whether to participate in art, simul, puzzles, or play chess games against one another.
Campers are either picked up at 3 or continue to stay until 5. Those staying for the longer day continue working on the previously mentioned activities.
In addition, the campers participated in a mindgames tournament from 3-5 every day. This included Othello, Stratego, Lionhart and Backgammon. Our students used various strategies with a bit of luck involved while dice rolling in order to defeat their opponents and move up the ranks. As of the end of the week, the tournament is still going on, but will be finished with an award ceremony next week after the final matchup. We’re looking forward to the finale soon!
Thank you everyone for joining us for another great week! We hope to see you all again soon. As always, the prize list is posted as a link on this page.
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