Day camp, Little Medical School, sewing camp among choices offered last week alone
Kids in summer day camp at The Community House Friday enjoyed doing Zumba on the patio and making Lego creations during "club" time. Six-year-old Laya Golshani was part of the Little Medical School camp. The Community House offered 10 weeks of summer camp, 13 arts camps, open arts studio, 57 enrichment camps and 52 athletic camps this summer, serving hundreds of kids. (Jim Slonoff photos)
Eight kids dressed in doctors coats sat around two tables Friday morning at The Community House, learning about prescriptions.
Instructor Carey Murphy offered different scenarios to the 7- and 8-year-olds, asking them to determine how many pills a week a patient would need if the doctor prescribed two pills twice a day for three days or three pills twice a day for five days. Those who knew the right answer to the second question - 30 - were excited to put their multiplication skills to use.
Many participants in the Little Medical School Camp want to be doctors or have medical professionals - from a geriatric doctor to a pharmacist to a forensic psychiatrist - as parents. They spent the week learning about various parts of the human body, with some fun hands-on activities to hold their attention. Pingpong balls were transformed into eyes and slime played the role of mucous.
Murphy said talking about digestion was especially entertaining.
"That was a hoot," she said. "Guess where it comes out? We had to talk about it all."
Across the hall, kids in The Community House's summer day camp were participating in "club" activities. Swiftie and Lego "club" projects were underway, with some campers in the kitchen making French toast and others on the patio doing Zumba. The camp for kids entering first through eighth grade includes weekly field trips, time at the pool and activities at The Community House.
Camp mentors Shannon Lynch of Hinsdale and Abby Lopez of Downers Grove were leading the students outdoors in various moves to songs from Pitbull to the "Cupid Shuffle."
"This is something Abby and I introduced last year for the campers to do," said Lynch, who is an education major at the University of Illinois. "Some of them love it. Some of them hate it."
But it keeps the kids busy - and some were clearly having a great time.
In addition to its own summer camp, which has about 80 students a week, and the medical school camp, The Community House last week was the site of a chess camp, sewing camp, culinary science camp and architecture camp.
Jimmy McDermott worked with Hinsdale South graduate Yuliya Drabchuk to offer an architecture camp in which students built a pueblo village in clay and a to-scale model of a one-bedroom apartment.
"That was both very challenging and rewarding," McDermott said.
Camp ended with students creating a model of the Golden Gate Bridge.
"If they had half as much fun as I did just seeing what they came up with, then it was a great success," he said.
In addition to its own full- and part-time employees who run summer camps and arts camps, The Community House contracts out with instructors for most of its other camps, Molly Towns, recreation and marketing supervisor, said Monday.
The facility is offering 57 enrichment and 52 athletic camps for some 1,200 preschoolers to teens this summer.
"Usually we kind of leave it up to the instructors what kind of classes they want to offer," Towns said. "We try to have a good mix of things."
The Whole Child Learning Company, for example, offered camps on baking, culinary science, art, fantasy, Legos, Minecraft, space and more, along with a Harry Potter-themed science and cooking camp. Athletic camps covered everything from archery and badminton to tennis and volleyball.
Little Medics had four different camps this summer, with the other three focused on dogs, cats and the wilderness.
Murphy was very enthusiastic about all the materials she was presenting to Little Medical School campers over their 15 hours of camp.
"It's a very cool class," she said.
