Community Corner
Westchase Summer Camp Provides A Wealth Of Activities
Each week campers go on a field trip, do arts and crafts, swim, play games and for an extra fee, can work with a tennis pro on their game.
The sounds of children laughing and shouting words of encouragement to each other during a late morning dodge ball game are common at Summer Day Camp at the
At one end of the volleyball court, referred to by campers as the "sand pit," one group of campers build sand castles.
On the other side of the volleyball net, other campers play kick ball and some campers choose to sit in the shade and talk to one of their counselors.
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"We provide a full range of fun activities for campers. Swimming is probably the most popular activity, but we also have a field trip a week, nature walks and all types of games," said Brett Johnson, director of the summer camp.
Emma, 9, who has attended the camp for the last 3 years, learned to swim at summer camp when she was six. Remo, 9, recalled that last year on a nature walk they found snake eggs.
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Both Emma and Remo also enjoy making arts and crafts. Ideas for the arts and crafts activity each week are designed by Assistant Camp Director, Brittany Larmon, and complement wherever the students have gone on their weekly field trip.
This week's trip was to the Florida Aquarium and students got to color fish cut outs that they placed in their own paper aquariums.
"Yesterday I made a shark, octopus and weird looking fish; it looked better in my mind than on the paper," Remo said.
Tennis camp is separate from summer camp, however, for an additional fee, campers at the summer camp can also receive an hour of professional tennis instruction from tennis pro, Mike Larscheid, who is the Director of Tennis.
"Summer is a great time to see if kids will like playing tennis, and if so, may want to continue playing throughout the winter months," said Larscheid.
Amy Hewitt whose husband played tennis professionally, enrolled her children, Ellie and Matthew, in the tennis camp.
"It's not just a camp, kids learn the fundamentals of the game and Mike is an awesome teacher," said Hewitt.
The full day summer camp runs from 8 am - 6 pm and the half day camp runs from either 8 am - 1 pm or 1 pm - 6 pm There are different rates for the camp depending upon resident and non resident status.
For more information about the camp check their website: westchasewca.com