Alliance Public School Grades 5 and 6 students had the Tim Horton’s Camp experience brought right to their classrooms, where they engaged in fun social-emotional learning activities over the course of several days.
Tim’s Camp’s program facilitator, Gillian Welk, said the Tim’s Classroom program travels all over Canada, delivering programs to youth who might not have the experience or the ability to come physically to camps.
“Day one, we focus on connection, day two is communication, day three is teamwork and on the last day, we always end in some sort of celebration to reward and celebrate their success,” Welk said. “We do a lot of different team initiatives. For example, the hot chocolate river, where students have to work together as a team to cross, stepping only on specific areas together.”
Grade 5 student Tate said, "I liked the marble tube run where we had to get the marble into the cup because it taught us how to problem solve and work together as a team. I learned how to work together by listening to others' ideas, combining ideas to make one good one, and problem-solving as a team."
Samantha Loreto, Grade 5 teacher, said that opportunities like Tim’s Camp are incredibly important because they give every student a chance to participate in meaningful, enriching experiences, reaching students who may not be able to attend otherwise.
“Many of the camp challenges involved planning, strategizing, and evaluating solutions, whether it was creating a group marble run and having to evaluate strategies and adjust or building the highest tower out of cups,” Loreto said. “The students had to persevere through some of the challenges they faced within the challenges. It was amazing watching the students take on leadership roles and have fun doing so.”
Welk said they hope that students learn some skills that hopefully can help them in the future. “If there is a conflict that comes up in their class, or maybe a challenge that they have to overcome outside of the classroom, then they at least have this baseline knowledge that they learn in a school to help them succeed, learn and grow,” Welk said.
