We have over forty campers in our village this week and it’s looking to be a great group! Yesterday we did some teambuilding activities to bring the kids together and they did great! They started off standing on a rope in a big circle. Without talking, they had to arrange themselves in order of their birthdays. We learned a lot about communication and how you can send messages to other people using your body language, even when you don’t necessarily mean to. They then moved onto a more difficult challenge: the cube. The village was split up into two groups, and each group had to get everybody through a giant cube without knocking it over. The catch? The cube was balancing on its’ axis, so the kids had to be very careful when they were moving through it not to knock it over! Afterwards, they talked about how they had to help each other by warning others when they were about to hit the side of the cube as they were going through. We discussed how sometimes we need to help others, because we cannot always see the challenges in front of us (like we could not see all sides of the cube as we were moving through it, and therefore were not aware when we were going to hit one side). All in all, it was a great morning! We learned a lot, and came together as a group as well! I am so excited for the week ahead!
In the Spirit of Matawa,
Lindsay (Frontier Village Director)

Last night at the Amazing Trekker Race, the girls of Spruce East, had to choose their fate! The easy side of the wall or the more difficult side of the wall. They chose the right hand and picked the easy side of the wall. The race went on with the girls taking a quick lead completing the wall. But the boys were quick to complete the wall and took the lead during archery. They causally jogged up to the dining and drew their best representation of YMCA Camp Matawa. Girls were still lagging behind. The boys finished their representation and then it came to the basketball courts, where the boys had their most difficult time. The girls caught up and moved to the balance beams (aka the Alpine Tower), where they took the lead. Soon they moved on to Matawa Lanes and bowled away the boys. They finished their Trekker cheer, and moved to the sand pits. The boys were right on girls tails catching up to take the lead. It all came down to the Gaga ball game, where the five boys beat the 11 girls in a game of Gaga Ball. The boys were victorious! Althought the boys won the Trekker Amazing Race, the village came together and sang our traditional daily evening song of “Friends.”

Tonight we are excited about having our traditional Wednesday night camp-out. The weather rock looks as if there will no rain or thunderstorms, so the Trekker Village will officially have their first camp-out of the year! So the Trekkers are in good spirits and we will have a great time making foil dinners, playing a few games, and singing some of our favorite camp songs. Also, we cannot wait to be looking at the stars to find our favorite constellations.

In the spirit of the Trekker Village,

We say, “and a knee to you”

We are currently in the middle of our superhero theme day, and boy has it been a blast! Andrew, our Trekker Village Director, and Lindsay, our Frontier Village Director, have transformed into Quail Man and Spatula Girl for the day. Evil Villains have stolen their loot, and unless the campers can find all of it, they will send Quail Man and Spatula Girl into the pond later this afternoon! The campers are about to start their search throughout camp for the missing coins in attempt to save Quail Man and Spatula Girl. Wish them luck, and remember to check the camp website for pictures early next week!

Hello to all from the pa-pa-pioneer village director! Today was a day full of fun and excitement for the pioneers. This morning we got together as a village and played a fun name game where we learned what super power each of us would have if our superpower started with the same letter of our first name. Then we paired up and each partner had to lead their blindfolded partner to an object just by talking. At first they found this hard to do because everyone was yelling at the same time – but behold they worked together and came up with the solution of taking turns! I have to say they are a pretty intelligent bunch! Our afternoon consisted of playing Sharks and Minnows and Blob Tag in the pool, followed by some parachute games which included Cat and Mouse and singing our village cheer under the “tent” we made. I don’t think I can count the number of times we have sang our village song today alone because we have sang it so many times – but it is so awesome to be able to cheer so loudly this week with two full pioneer cabins!!! Right now the girls are playing some John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt Lost and Found and the boys are on the A-Field playing kickball. They are all stoked for capture the flag tonight so hopefully the rain will hold off. I know I can’t wait to see how much fun we will have with the rest of our week!

Hello to all from the pa-pa-pioneer village director! Today was a day full of fun and excitement for the pioneers. This morning we got together as a village and played a fun name game where we learned what super power each of us would have if our superpower started with the same letter of our first name. Then we paired up and each partner had to lead their blindfolded partner to an object just by talking. At first they found this hard to do because everyone was yelling at the same time – but behold they worked together and came up with the solution of taking turns! I have to say they are a pretty intelligent bunch! Our afternoon consisted of playing Sharks and Minnows and Blob Tag in the pool, followed by some parachute games which included Cat and Mouse and singing our village cheer under the “tent” we made. I don’t think I can count the number of times we have sang our village song today alone because we have sang it so many times – but it is so awesome to be able to cheer so loudly this week with two full pioneer cabins!!! Right now the girls are playing some John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt Lost and Found and the boys are on the A-Field playing kickball. They are all stoked for capture the flag tonight so hopefully the rain will hold off. I know I can’t wait to see how much fun we will have with the rest of our week!

Good Afternoon Folks!

The Trekker Village is trekkin’ forward for their campout tonight. It should be a fantastic time! We have the whole night planned with many activities from our weekly “best meal” in a foil bag to a game of Wolf-Call to time to relax and calm down from a day of activity and our friends. We hope it’s a starry night, where we can find different constellations as well.

In the spirit of the Trekker Village – We say knee to you!

P.S. Spruce West took down Spruce East in the game of GaGa Ball! They’re the official Trekker Village Champions this week! Good job girls!

After lunch today all of the day campers created their own survival game! We started by making fishing poles with twigs, string, and paper clips. Then, we folded and decorated oragami fish. Once everyone was finished, we took turns trying to catch each others’ fish. I was impressed with how patient and polite our campers were with each other – Way to go! We had a great time!

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We just completed our village time, “The Trekker Amazing Race.” WOW…it was pretty amazing! It started off with each cabin choosing their fate by choosing which side of the climbing wall they would have to climb (easy, medium, and hard). Spruce East dominated the wall, archery, drawing, basketball, bowling, Alpine Balance, Sand Stacking, and more, but the Spruce West and Kettle Hole weren’t far behind. What it came down to was GAGA ball!!! It was stiff competition until the girls of Spruce East and West teamed up to eliminate the Kettle Hole Boys. Boys held their own for awhile until the girls knocked them out. However, what happened to the two girl cabins that teamed up together? That’s right, it came down to fierce competition between two Spruce West campers and two Spruce East campers.

After the awesome GAGA ball game, we came together as a village and sang our village night song and parted ways for the evening. It was truly an amazing day and the Trekkers are really building relationships with one another. And we really can’t wait for our camp-out tomorrow!

Write your prediction on who won in our blog and the answer will be up in the next 24 hours!

Sincerely,

Andrew J. Gappa I
Trekker Village Director

After having a week together and learning how to be counselors, the Counselors in Training are beginning to settle into their cabins! They are divided among the three villages and are having fun getting to know the campers in their cabins. As much as they miss being with their fellow C.I.T.’s all the time, they enjoy being with the campers and practicing the skills that we learned the first week of the program. Learning how to deal with missing home and exclusion are some of the most challenging parts of being in the cabin. But as they learn skills to become counselors, the C.I.T.’s mature and gain more respect for themselves as well as the campers. We cannont wait to see how the rest of this week goes as they learn and grow even more!
-Your friendly neighborhood CIT directors, Katie and Mike!

I hope everyone has been enjoying their week!  I wanted to give everyone an update half way through this amazing session of camp!!  If you have been watching the weather, you know that this week has been either hot or rainy, sometime both at the same time!  We have been keeping cool and hydrated by taking breaks in our air conditioned cabins and lodge, swimming in the pool, and even playing water games with the very chilly hose water!  

You may have also seen on the news that tonight we had a tornado warning in our county.  The stormed missed us by quite a big distance, but your kids will still come home with stories of singing songs in the storm shelter!  Everyone is staff and well.  We were able to get back outside for some games after the storm was well passed.  In addition, Wednesdays are usually our campout nights, so we had foil dinners and hotdogs in the dining hall and it has never smelled so good!  The Pioneers (7-9 year olds) and Frontiers (10-12 year olds) are outside now making s’mores with the help of their counselors and the CITS before lights out at ten!  The Trekkers (13-15 year olds) had desert already and headed back to the cabins to set up tents inside!  They are VERY excited about camping IN!  )

 If you haven’t had a chance, check out pictures from this week by visiting www.matawa.org and clicking on “Summer Camp Photos” in the bottom right corner. 

Thanks so much and have a great rest of the week!!  I know we will!

Annie Hernandez