Theme-of-the-Day is a daily post where we ask readers to leave their summer camp ideas, using the day’s theme, in the comments section. What ideas and suggestions do you have for the Theme of the Day? What game, craft, apparel choice, theme meal, evening activity, special event, song, skit, or anything else would you do at camp if your theme was…
Emergency Services
As always I will kick off the theme with five suggestions. Then it’s your turn to leave your awesome suggestions and ideas in the comments area below.
- The fire department sets up stations where the campers have the opportunity to use the “jaws of life” (on donated wrecked cars), put on full fireman’s gear and rescue a dummy from a “burning building (a large tent that is filled with smoke by the fire department), and use the fire hoses in teams.
- The police department sets up a “routine” traffic stop where a couple of the chosen campers get to talk the driver out of the vehicle using the police car’s pa system, prepares a camp building/room where an adult suspect is hiding and the campers must enter as police officers to find the suspect using the proper techniques, and go through a course of targets using a paintball gun.
- Search and Rescue sets up demonstrations using their search dogs and has the campers go on a mock search to find some lost hikers buried under rubble.
- The Marines have an optional morning run and PT (physical training) session, runs a workshop on survival skills, and runs a workshop on first aid.
- The Marines and the police department both have hand-to-hand combat demonstrations.
During one of our camps we have the fire department come and do a lot of interesting things with the campers. They talk with them and let them use the fire hose. The kids really like the whole experience. I thnk most fire departments have some sort of program that they do at schools and can modify that for camps.
This seems like an awful lot of work for a theme. I like themes that are easy and low cost.
Don, we do the same thing with our day camp once a summer. The fire department is gracious about giving us their time.
Karen, it is a lot of work to put together and Emergency Services themed camp. It takes getting the representatives together for meetings well before the summer, but once they are on board they come up with some of the neatest activities and workshops for the campers.