The Rhythm of Camp: Designing Training That Mirrors Your Camp's Natural Cycles
Photo Credit: @acarterclark
During his first activity transition, Robert moved his campers toward the waterfront with all the energy of a funeral procession.
No songs, no excitement, just pointing and walking. "We practiced transitions sitting in chairs," he told me later. "I had no idea they were supposed to be fun."
Robert's experience isn't unique. The most powerful trainings I've seen are the ones that recreate the actual rhythm and flow of camp life, but too many programs focus on getting the required basics out without teaching the actual camp experience. I've seen countless staff get to the first day and not understand what happens next and when.
The day, week, and session of your camp are one of those "hidden curriculum" moments. I remember my second year I had such confidence because I didn't have the low-grade stress of not quite knowing what was going to happen next. Your first-year staff feel this, and you can reduce that by having your trainings mimic the normal day as much as possible.
Understanding Camp’s Natural Cycle
There is an undeniable rhythm to camp. Part of the secret sauce of any camp is campers and staff feeling they understand and recognize that rhythm, particularly as they come back each year. There are a few key ones:
Daily Rhythms — From wake-up to lights out, or arrival to dismissal. For an overnight camp, so much revolves around the meal schedule!
Weekly Patterns — Think opening day to closing day, the rush of the first day to the unique energy of the last. If kids stay a few weeks, you'll feel variations of this energy each week.
Session Arcs — No matter the year or length, a session always starts on a high of excitement, has some depth as relationships and skills build in the middle, and celebration and reflection at the end.
Summer Progression — You can predict the energy shifts throughout the summer, particularly among staff. At the beginning they are high energy, and about midway it dips, and then rebounds in the final days.
There is a great concept called Natural Cycles that has been a defining way I've shaped programming from afterschool programs in South Central Los Angeles to camp programs in Vermont. Good rhythms support staff and campers, and learning that beat of camp should begin in training.
The Natural Cycles Framework for Training
I've been using Natural Cycles for years.
While the name might seem out there, at its core is a very simple concept. There are predictable cycles in our lives, such as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West and the flow of the seasons. We are used to these natural rhythms. Great experiences, lesson plans, and programs also follow predictable rhythms. While in the future I'll do a bigger deep dive into the concept, there are generally four parts:
1. The Beginning — Get your participants excited and inspired.
2. The Work — Give a great orientation, plenty of time for work, and breaks!
3. The Celebration — Intentionally celebrate the work that's done
4. The Reflection — Build moments of reflection to connect to larger concepts, even if they are short and sweet
One of the neat parts of this concept is that it scales up and down, kind of like Russian nesting dolls. The best programs shape individual events, days, weeks, and entire sessions using this same framework. They always start off inspiring and orienting kids and end on celebrating and reflecting. Knowing this rhythm helps prepare your staff to know what's coming and, in turn, be more effective.
Your training should also mirror this basic flow:
The Beginning of Staff Training
First impressions matter! How do you welcome staff and help them survive the first 24 hours, such as: a. Name badges & pronouns b. Welcome folder with schedules, maps, common vocabulary, etc. c. Returning staff who are actively welcoming new staff
The Work of Staff Training
You likely already have this down, but this includes things like: a. Sequence your trainings, start with foundational concepts and get more specific. Leave things they need for the first day of camp close to the first day of camp! b. Think about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The first evening we always had a talk on "how to survive the next 24 hours" which included just the essentials they needed to know like where the bathrooms were, where to find snacks, and good times to be on their phones and reach out to loved ones.
The Celebration of Staff Training
Include an intentional moment to breathe and celebrate the work of training. Think of it as a separation from camp arrival day. a. Have a capstone celebration event, like a dinner or "graduation." Think camp magic for staff. b. Have staff share out what they've learned or hopes and dreams for the summer.
The Reflection on Staff Training
Great learning is about synthesizing all of the information. Be sure to provide moments to think about all they've learned and plan for the summer, such as: a. Journaling about what they've learned and what they still need help on. b. Have moments of quiet as well as celebration. Even just the community sitting in silence (or soft music) while they contemplate can be powerful.
Your training can be elevated from good to great by assessing whether you are hitting all aspects of this rhythm.
Designing Daily Training Rhythms
There's no better way to prepare for camp than to practice what a day in the life looks like. The quicker you can create muscle memory about where to go and how to transition the better off your staff (and your campers) will be. I experimented a lot with this concept, even creating a gamified "day" where staff had to use all their skills as they went through their practice day. While you don't need to go that far, there are a few tweaks you can do to better match your camp day.
Create Training Blocks That Mirror Program Blocks
A normal day at Timberlake consisted of a morning, afternoon, and evening program block with meals in between. Campers would spend time in activity areas in the morning learning skills, have some choice and movement in the afternoon, and the evenings would vary. Our training followed a similar model where we intentionally varied movement vs. thinking times. Morning was for more sit-down conceptual learning (when they're fresh in the day) and afternoon was more group bonding through camp clean & set-up. Each block lasted the same length of time as a program block at camp.
Focus on Transitions
I do entire trainings on building and implementing strong routines in programs, particularly around transitions. Build into your training time for staff to practice and talk about key transitions, such as:
Entering and exiting spaces
How to clean up spaces before leaving
How to move between activities, both wayfinding around a space and how quickly those transitions should happen
Talk about the transition before practicing, pointing out the key steps of it. After transitioning, reflect on it when possible, asking staff when it could go wrong with kids present. Transitions are the part of the day that can unexpectedly derail your program. Staff should go into the summer knowing how long those transitions should be, what staff and campers can do during them, and ways they could go sideways.
Model Meals & Breaks
At Timberlake the day revolved around the three meals. We ate family style by cabin group and had a lot of routines around circling up before the meal, passing food at the table, announcements, and clean-up. All three meals would take up around 5 hours of our day! We modeled how our meals worked day one and reinforced them often, relying on returning staff to help keep it all going. I particularly liked to model short announcements!
Similarly, make sure you have scheduled breaks. Model how long these should last and give clear instructions about what can be done during a break. Putting these in training signals to your staff they're important to do when kids are present.
Common Rhythm Mistakes in Training
Your training already has a rhythm to it even if you don't realize it. However, these could be making your training ineffective or worse, teaching staff to dread learning at camp and tune out. Here are a few common mistakes you're making:
Frontloading too much information — This is so easy to do. You spend too much time on the big "why" behind camp and don't have enough time to teach essential skills, or teach a skill on day one staff won't use until a week or two later. Brains can only hold so much information at once!
Neglecting Transition Times — Staff won't know how these work or how to teach them to campers.
Missing Reflection Opportunities — You might think reflection is always written. It doesn't have to be! It can be short and sweet — my favorite two questions were always "What did you notice?" and "What do you wonder?" If you don't reflect it can seem just like an endless stream of disjointed sessions that don't actually prepare your staff.
Forcing High Energy When You Need Calm — Ice breakers are essential and are sometimes a mixed bag. There are times in your training that staff are tired or just had a big learning session where a high energy activity could be doing more harm than good. Sometimes you don't need another ice breaker, you just need a break!
One mistake that took me years to improve on was pacing at the beginning vs. the end. At the start of training it almost feels like you have all the time in the world and take things slower than maybe you should — I did! I ended up rushing at the end, which didn't help anybody. Adopting a Natural Cycles rhythm helped me avoid that.
Concluding Thoughts
You can improve your training by having it reflect your camp day more. That repetition will help staff so much! When staff feel confident about the day, kids feel it. While you might not be able to mirror the day exactly, find ways to align your training closer to a typical day/week/session at camp. It's a small tweak that helps in a big way!
Be on the lookout for our complete blog on Natural Cycles and be sure to check out Pinterest for templates and more you can use in training!
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