Summer Camp memoriesI’ll start with my favorite: On the last day of CMW's Summer Program, a number of parents came down to Wickford to see their kids perform what we’d been working on all week. After the afternoon performance, instead of going home with their parents, some students me asked if they could ride home on the bus instead, to have as much time as possible with the new friends they’d made that week.
This year's Summer Camp was based at the First Baptist Church in Wickford, and from there, after a morning of group games and intensive musical activities, we were able to go on walks to the playground, to the water, and take afternoon bus trips to the Gilbert Stuart Museum (where we all got to go in row boats in the pond behind the museum!) and Scarborough Beach.
On Friday afternoon, we sang the CMW Round, had pieces to perform from our Orchestra, Fiddle & Chamber Music groups, and shared some of the Improvisation Games we’d been playing all week. Because of Jason’s All-Camp Choir class, our bus full of CMW students started recognizing lots of intervals and learned all the solfege hand signs to go along with them.
I can’t end this blog post without mentioning the incredible staff who were committed to making the week really fun for every student. They not only helped with straight-forward needs like tuning instruments, pouring juice, and leading the cheers, but they helped with much more subtle and challenging things like encouraging new friendships, boosting students’ musical confidence, and modeling enthusiasm for trying new things. I felt really lucky to be working with Josh, Andrew, Ian, Ali, Anne, David, Jason, and Laura.
We solicited written feedback from the students. One of the comments that stands out because we saw it more than once: “Don’t change anything!” -Rachel Panitch, CMW staff |
