Camp Journal
Greens day of bonding
24th July 2017
This morning marked the beginning of the second week of Session 2 for our lovely campers! Now that our Green group have had the time to bond and grow more confidence it was time to challenge them with some team building activities. There was all sorts of activities including physical games like ‘desert island’ and ‘Nightline’ along with others, and there was no end of giggles and teasing as the campers attempted to work as a well functioning team!
Next up, it was time to further improve and test the campers skill set with some language lessons in the afternoon! The English classes worked on superlatives and imperative verbs during their session and then applied what they had learnt during an activity to create an advert for a camp Suisse backpack! To finish off their lovely day, the campers had some Cottage Pie and a nice and calm movie night before they headed to bed.
Reds and Blues Edventure day
23rd July 2017
After breakfast this morning, the Blue and Red group campers set off refreshed and excited for some nature fun on their Mountain Edventure day! During this activity, the keen students learnt about various aspects to outdoor life; from how to build shelters for small animals to filtering water to make it safe and drinkable. We were even lucky enough to find some small frogs chilling out in the stream and collected some other lovely nature objects like plants, pine cones and flowers which could later be used for some nature arts and crafts. Reluctantly, the campers had to finish their adventurous activity however, once they had returned to camp and had refuelled themselves with some delicious lunch, our Red Group Campers had some time to practise their climbing skills on our fun indoor climbing wall before their session of creativity combining some art with some nature!
Meanwhile, the Blue group were able to choose between sports and art jamming (art with some catchy music to help inspire) and so all of our campers were kept occupied and active! They also then were let loose for some rock climbing after the Reds in our famous climbing wall area. They attacked the wall with courage, and some fun games were incorporated to make it even more challenging using the different coloured courses and difficulty levels on order to create some competition and fun.
Finally, to round up this adventurous and active day, evening entertainment was bingo/casino night in order to keep with the competitive theme of the afternoon and there where many prizes to be won before heading off to bed for a much needed rest.
Greens and Yellows descend on the Chocolate Factory
All of the Green and Yellow groups woke up excited today as it was time for the campers to head .to the chocolate factory at Callier. We drove down and once we had arrived, we were shown a collection of films about the company, along with various adverts from throughout their history! This was then finished with a fun quiz before moving on to the much anticipated tour. Despite an unplanned technical error, we all learnt a lot as the campers were taught about the origins of the delicious substance, and were able to taste mountains of free samples! Unsurprisingly, the shop was very popular and plenty of chocolates and souvenirs were purchased before we then headed to the nearby historic town of Gruyeres. Famous for its delicious Cheese, the kids had some free time to explore the beautiful village and castle, with plenty of quaint shops and beautiful cobbled streets.
Next, it was back to camp for a relaxing shower hour before evening entertainments. Today, each group chose a movie to remake in the reduced time of 3 minutes! This was equally exciting and challenging and there was lots of creativity and plenty of laughs in the air before bedtime this evening!
Green Blog: Saturday 22 July
Yesterday morning the campers were all spruced up for their camp photos. Greens had fun testing a variety of poses!
The afternoon brought out a competitive streak in some as it was time for our Olympics with campers split in to a variety of teams representing a number of countries. In the end Ireland took the Gold to the chagrin of Camp Suisse staff in the Swiss team.
The evening was spent solving a Murder Mystery, what had happened to J-bag, only time would tell!
Red Group: Saturday 22nd July
Another full day at Camp Suisse! This morning we cleaned our rooms and had our camp photos taken with our colour groups.
After lunch, the Camp Suisse Olympics started with the campers grouped in to different countries. Each country had challenges to complete such as obstacle races, 3 legged race as well as the egg and spoon. In the end Gold went to Irleland, Silver to Belgium and Bronze to Greece.
After yummy tortelini for dinner our campers finished the day with a Murder Mystery activity, solving clues to discover the killer.
All in all another fantastic day at Camp Suisse!
Picture day!
Everybody progressing well in Red and Blues group!
21st July 2017
The campers awoke once more to blue skies and sun today. They began the day with language classes after breakfast, in which they practised their speaking and writing skills in their foreign language, learnt new vocabulary and played some games in order to practise! In the beginners French Class campers learnt the days of the week, months, seasons and the weather! We ended the class with a game of Happy Families on the decking in the sun. Everybody is making real progress whilst still having plenty of fun!
After a delicious hot lunch, our Red campers then got helmeted up and set off for an exciting morning of mountain biking through the beautiful Swiss Alps! Meanwhile, the blue group went to do some Archery on the football pitch, using some games and competitions to spice things up a bit! Who knew such a skillful game could also be so crazy!
Yummy creamy chicken and leak pie was waiting for them upon their return and after a comforting evening meal, for evening entertainment, campers had the chance to choose between yoga, Zumba and sports which luckily wore them out just in time for bed!! Such a great day.
Yellow and Greens improving their skill set
The Campers awoke to a beautiful blue sky and bright sunshine, and after a healthy breakfast, the Greens and Yellows separated for some fun! Today, our greens started the day in the climbing wall where they had a great sport session, using the different coloured routes on the wall to challenge themselves and learn problem solving as well as improving their technique! Meanwhile the Yellows set out to do some archery on the football field. First, they learnt about the different points of the bow and arrow, before learning how to aim and shoot and finally putting it all into practise. They practised a lot before putting their archery skills to the test: the location of the arrow on the target indicated which pieces of cutlery they could eat with at dinner!
After lunch, and whilst a storm thundered overhead, the groups separated into their language classes. The French beginners for example, learnt the different parts of the body and physical descriptions, before testing their knowledge in a game of ‘Who’s Who’.
Dinner was a tasty chicken pie accompanied by ice cream for dessert and after shower hour and dinner, each camper could choose how they wanted to spend their evening from a choice of Sports & Games, Zumba and some Yoga! What a fantastic day despite the storm and rain!
Labyrinth exploring for Reds and Blues
20th July 2017
A fresh day means fresh language classes for our Reds and Blues! The different classes varied from vocabulary games to oral presentations to really help push the campers in varied and useful ways! Once they had sufficiently stretched their thinking caps, it was time for a packed lunch and we headed off to the Labyrinth adventure Park! The park has everything from a giant maze where you can find treasure points to slides, games and rides! Unfortunately, all fun must come to an end, so it was time to head home. However, they had a delicious dinner of Lasagna awaiting them followed by a fun evening of casino night and card games! So the disappointment certainly did not last very long!
Greens and Yellow slide their way through the day
We started the day today with some challenging and thrilling wall climbing in which everybody tested their courage and their limits! This fun was then followed by some sports on our beautiful football pitch. As fun as this all was, the best part of the day was still to come! Soon, but not soon enough, it was time to head off to… THE AQUA PARC! The park is located in the beautiful Swiss town of Villeneuve, and situated along a glistening Lake Geneva that looked very tempting in the heat. The campers were able to relax on the grass outside, some even lucky enough to have ice creams, and enjoy all the exciting slide rides, as well as going to the calmer ‘lazy river’.
Finally, it was sadly time to get the bus back at 5 pm, soon after which, we arrived at Camp Suisse for shower hour. The day still had much more excitement to hold for our groups, as walked through some beautiful terrain, including a lovely Lagoon, in order to arrive at our BBQ area in the lovely forest! From Hotdogs, to Veggieburgers and chips with salad; we were spoilt for choice and very full once we were finished with our dessert. Our evening entertainment had a special twist today! A normal game of football, however the teams were campers vs staff…. its safe to say there was some controversial refereeing!! Congratulations to the staff who only narrowly beaut the talented campers!
Greens and Yellows day of games!
19th July 2017
The campers awoke to another beautiful day at Camp Suisse. After eating breakfast for some fuel and bathing themselves in enough sun cream, we all headed off excitedly to the beautiful back-dropped football pitch for some fun with morning sports and games, We played capture the flag, football, rounders and finally; touch rugby that brought out everybody’s competitive side! Once everybody’s energy was sufficiently used up and plenty of fun had been had, we then headed back to camp for a change of clothes and a shower, then demolishing our lovely lunch buffet before heading off to put on our thinking caps for some language lessons . In order to keep with the fun and game like nature of the day, many of the lessons included fun games like Cluedo and Scrabble in order to teach the campers in a fun and interactive way so that they could make the most of the class! The campers then had shower hour to rest and recuperate and ate dinner before an evening of casino games!
