A fun filled educational camp on a sultry summer day. One can aptly summarize the Educamp held on Saturday June 8th 2019 at the DI with only this one sentence. But it would be unfair because the day was packed with an array of activities which must be brought into the limelight. It would also be unfair because people who were working behind the scenes poured in their heart and soul to make this camp a success.

Around 40 kids enrolled for the camp and barring two all the kids turned up. Considering most of them are having summer holidays, the enthusiasm among them was noteworthy.

All the kids were divided in to 4 groups. The groups were named Jaguars, Panthers, Pythons & Tigers. Each group had one Captain and one Vice captain.

Biswasalil Mitra was the captain of Team Jaguar with Nitya as the Vice Captain. Their team included Meher, Arjav, Parth, Ananya, Herekas, Nate, Shaurya.

Raghav Raja & Faith were the captain and vice captain respectively of team Panther. This team had Aarav, Aliasgar, Eshaan, Dishika, Nayantara, Keisha, Arjun.

Rayd was the skipper & Akshita the deputy of team Tiger. This team had Ishanvi, Jayden, Devaansh, Aaron, Nysa, Naman, Pratham.

Adrian and Kairah led team Python. The team had Nathan, Vivaan, Kairah, Raghav, Urvish, Skyla, Sanhita, Soham.

All the teams were asked to tie coloured ribbons on their wrists - Panthers (Yellow), Jaguars (Red) Pythons (Blue) & Tigers (Green).

After a brief warm up session, the kids headed towards the lawn. Camp leader Leslie had planned some exciting outdoor activities for the kids.

Ball relay game was the first of the outdoor games followed by a very interesting ‘Mala’ relay game in which they had to pass a rope mala to each other without using their hands. In the Snake relay the kids held hands and formed a uniform line. A garland made of cotton rope was put on the first player and he/she needed to pass it on to the next player only by using body movements. Whoever touched the rope with hands was disqualified. The kids had great fun jiggling away their bodies while passing on the rope to their team mates.

Next game was played with frisbees. The rule was simple, whoever catches the frisbee gets one point. First round was between Panthers and Pythons . In the second round Jaguars played against Tigers. Jaguars and Panthers were the winners in this game.

It was inspiring to see how Leslie along with other adults ran alongside the kids, probably reliving their childhood days!

After this the teams headed for a “drinks break”. They were served fresh lime juice along with Oreo biscuits.

The first of the indoor games was Act in a Minute. The players had to enact the name of a fairy tale or cartoon character within a minute. Nushrat explained the rules to the kids and the game started with the Panthers team guessing ‘Finding Nemo’, ‘Beauty & the beast’, ‘Shaun the sheep’ correctly. Jaguars team found it a little difficult to enact Little mermaid. The Pythons member with one swift action of the hand was able to make his team members guess ‘Rapunzel’ correctly.

Tigers got Kungfu Panda and was enacted very well by Jayden but the answer was given by Pythons so by default they got the point. They also guessed Lion King correctly. Next chit was picked up by Pythons and they correctly guessed Pied piper of Hamelin as well as Red Riding Hood. Jaguars was equally good in guessing Frog Prince & Sleeping Beauty. Avengers was a little difficult for the Tigers to guess, although they took the names of almost all the superheroes individually.

Overall, when this game ended I felt the kids were really good in their guessing games which I am sure will serve a bigger purpose in future.

The next indoor game was ‘Team Posters’ a relay game. The theme was ‘Life@DI’. All the team members used their imagination and took turns to decorate their posters. I saw the kids added play areas mostly in their posters, in another poster, one team wrote ‘DI is our second home’. Tigers won this followed closely by Jaguars & Panthers.

The fun then shifted to the swimming pool.  A straight relay across the width of the pool saw a few “arm-banders” struggling to make it while some of the big fish literally slid across the pool. The all-time favourite, Pool Catch, was great fun with the teams vying for the tennis ball thrown in by Leonardo.  Lorenzo, in the pool, ensured that there were no accidents.  Even the littlest ones had a chance to play in special rounds. Full length races – girls, junior boys and senior boys – then brought the curtain down on the pool activities and sharpened the appetite, no doubt.

 

The kids drifted indoors for Lunch, a sumptuous spread of Chinese Non veg & Veg items.

Post lunch there was a quiz session conducted by Brett Fernandes, one of our members who just loves quizzing the kids.  The teams were sub-divided in to Junior and Senior and they were asked questions related to books, comics, food, sports and also there was an audio and a visual round. Scoring 10 points if a Junior answered and 5 points if a Senior did, the quiz was an exercise in management!  Brett was happy that only one question went unanswered, though some teams had it a bit tough.

Next game was conducted by Christabel and was named ‘Hunting Tales’. Here the kids were again subdivided in to Junior and Senior. There were some ‘Seekers’ who were asked to seek the book from the Library and ‘Tellers’ who narrated a story based on the cover of that book. 

The junior teams were given names of some books on a chit and they had to rush to the library to hunt for the book from the shelf and hand it over to their team members. The seniors, however, not only had to track the book but also needed to find a page number written on the chit and track a certain quote.

This was followed by Pictionary for the senior members of the team. They had to draw Proverbs given to them.  Interestingly, either proverbs are not taught in school or our DI kids are not familiar with them!  That was one learning for the kids who came.

Meanwhile, the juniors of the team were busy making colourful bookmarks which again were evaluated and added to team points.

The Panthers team was awarded extra points because they were the only team to have handed over the crayons on their own after the game.

Next was the very interesting ‘Taboo Game’ where one member of the team was required to face the screen where the taboo words were displayed and the remaining members sat facing the audience, with their back to the screen. One of the words displayed was ‘Banana’ so one team member went up and he said “it is opposite of vegetable’ and before he could give any more hints, one of his team members answered it correctly.

Someone in the audience told me “How did he guess it in the first go? These kids are smart isn’t it?” I nodded in agreement. After spending an entire day with them, I didn’t have an iota of doubt in my mind about their intelligence.

But no camp can end indoors and so the yelling crowd went outside for their most favourite “Tug-o’-war”.  After 3 pulls each and a semi final, then a final, the winners were Jaguars, followed by Pythons, Panthers and Tigers – not to mention a few bruised hands and spills while pulling.

The Panthers team with maximum points were declared the winners and they very graciously shared their winning prize in the form of a cake with all the other teams. Snacks were served (aloo chat, sandwiches, croquets and juice packs) and the day ended on a good note with smiling faces all around.

Kudos to DI for organizing such camps which make not only the kids happy but also those adults who have kept the child alive & thriving in their hearts. DI is indeed a second home for most of us.

[Editor's Note:  Thank you to these people who spent hours on designing this camp -- Rajashree Kundalia, Aniruddha Sen, Tanya Robinson, Michael Rao, Debra Alexander, Christabel D'Gama, Nushrat Lokhandwala, Simran Kaur, Brett Fernandes, Sreemoyee Mitra, Rituparna Sen Dutta, Leonardo, Lorenzo and Leslie D'Gama]