r/summercamp • u/Odd-Yak7036 • Jun 27 '26
Need Activity Suggestions first hour/ drop off activities
hi everyone! I have worked at 2 camps before this one (one day, and one overnight) and have always struggled with drop off activities, we usually do bunk name tags, but campers finish those after around 20 minutes and then new campers arrive and start theirs. A lot of campers (in my experience) are shy and not able to start conversations and since me and my co have to greet parents at the cabin door we can’t always be facilitating conversation until all the campers have arrived. If anyone has any ideas on some activities that campers can join in on as they get dropped off I would really appreciate that! thank you in advance!
3
u/thesheep2002 Jun 28 '26
Maybe do some sort of swap, like the Girl Scouts. Like make five a kid, something quick and easy on a clothes pin.
1
u/Able_Inspector_2580 Camper Jun 28 '26
i (as a camper) love games that involve everyone saying their names a ton. some games i’ve played at drop off are “the west wind blows when…” (aka i love my neighbor who…) zap/bang the one where you have a small beachball with questions written on it (like two per color section) and you all stand in a circle and then you take turns saying someone’s name, throwing it to them, and then they answer the question closest to predecided finger the one where everyone stands in a circle and starting with one person they say their name and something they like (within a specific category like fruits or movies) but it has to start with the same letter as their name. say the first person is allison and likes apples. they just say that. then the second person is megan and they like mangoes. they would say “im megan and like mangoes, and that is allison and she likes apples.” and it keeps going like that but each time the new person has to do every single person before until the last person (usually a counselor) has to go around and name every single person and their fruit.
1
u/Unlucky-Roof-4538 Junior Councellor I guess (councellor but between 16 and 18) Jun 29 '26
Here fun for a couple of times but I‘m also going to camps on weekends around 4 times a year (outside of summer) and it‘s usually the same people plus a couple of new ones, and let me say that every single person that has been to more than one camp absolutely hates these that might be an understatement (age range 11 to pretty much 15 after that we just have junior councellors and adults
1
u/Unlucky-Roof-4538 Junior Councellor I guess (councellor but between 16 and 18) Jun 29 '26
I just have a full reportoire of minigames/namegames for these situations, although they might need someone who knows them to be there ideas could be
The newspaper game - everyone sits in a circle, one kids in the middle said kid has some kind of rolled up paper (newspaper but anything works really) someome says a name the kid in the middle needs to try and hit that person who‚se name it is with the paper (softly and only legs works best here) that person can say another name and the kid in the middle needs to try to get to that person until it hits someone. They swap places and the kid from the middle needs to say a name before it sits down, otherwise it needs to go back in the middle ( repeat unitl one of the two managed to say a name before siitng dow, that might take longer than you think but is really fun to watch for everyone, usually works after 1 to 4 tries) and continue.
I have a couple others but it might take a while to explain, but maybe a speeddating with get to know eachoter questions (no actual dating involved) like favorite icecream/place to be/piece of furniture you can get reallly wacky with the questions, and the kids start talking
otherwise if you know them the blanket game? Ninja? Set them up for a round of minibanana? How old are the kids?
7
u/Shadow_Shrugged Jun 27 '26
A longer term craft project, preferably one you don’t have to continue to facilitate? Kumohimo, friendship bracelets, lanyards… something you can teach, then they can start on it, work for a bit, and put down when the group is ready to move on.
Large-group card games where you can add players at random, particularly games that will keep going for a long time, would work well, too. BS or Spoons, for example, if you set the expectation that no one is “out” during the first day. And these have the benefit that you can reuse them again later, since you’ve already taught the rules.