Leisure time and recreational activities in camps

In addition to a specific professional programme of a camp it is also important to offer campers attractive leisure time activities. If a child is bored they tend to be naughty sooner or later! It practically means that certain competitions and contest should be announced for the whole camping period. These might include a competition for the title of the ’Cleanest tent”, or imdividual or other games, ballgames, quizzes, poetry contest etc. As it is attested by experience the competitions are very efficient and they can be organized in all areas of camp life.

            Before arriving at the camp experienced camp leaders put together a potential programme considering the weather forecast as well. They also bring the necessary equipment and prizes to be awarded. Typically it is the type of animators in more modern camps. These skills can be used in private life, too, when several feamilies come together and programmes need to be organized for their own and their friends’ children. In this chapter we intend to describe and systematize these tasks and games and give the methodology related to them. alkozunk, hogy összerendezetten leírjuk ennek a faladatnak a szempontrendszerét, tartalmát.

           Games, although, most often we think of children, when hearing this word, are important fro adults as well, although they play a different role in the life of the various age groups.  

Motivations include:

- a child does not posses the world, but learns about it instead. According to this idea the game is the primary scene in our children’s thinking and learning process.  A játék közepette tanulja meg a természeti és szocializálódás szabályrendszereit. When playing a game a child will learn about weight (wood, metals, plastic), balance (building blocks), speed (crawling, walking, running ). These physical properties and the rules related to them are learnt through games while playing, but later they will be used at school and in everyday life as well. A child will learn about the inpact of the environment on his/her body, but will also leanr about himself/herself and about heis and her skills. On the other hand children will acquire social competences and will use the games to practice cooperative skills and very importantly will learn, that while games free our bodies and thoughts, they also restrict us through their rules and regulations.  

The child’s respect and search for rules can be noticed at an early age. Consider the following situation:

The little grandchild may ask his grandpa: ’Are we going to play hide-and-seek?

’Yes’.

’What are the rules?’

Primarily it is not the result that matters but the joy of the game itself. ( The grandchild of the former situation loved playing with building blocks, too. Building a tower – the higher the better – is one of his favourite pastimes. Buta s soon as the last block was put into its place, he immediately destoyed it and started building again and again. So, he was more interested in

the building process than in the result, the building itself.

            At a later age the adult would also want to find his or her ideal world in games. At this time the role of the game is to offer recreation, while the personality of the player is also on display.