Thursday, June 29th Annex Charter School wrapped up their Summer STEAM Camp with an open house for visitors to come and see the projects students had worked on throughout the four week program.
This year’s camp students were grouped into similar grade levels and then learned the same subject matter each day, but at their own grade level ability. Projects and lessons were all based on Science, Technologie, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. Pictured below is little six year old Roselyn who shared her STEAM journal with all her writing and discoveries documented from her camp experience this year.
Joe Burris, an educator at Annex Charter School, shared that writing is a daily part of the camp. Students were tasked to write their reflections on the subject taught and at the end of the day write another reflection on the day as a whole. Burris stated that, “We see some growth in that.” During the camp’s first year Burris shared that there was a young student who started off the camp only being able to write a single word, but by the end the student was writing complete sentences. According to Burris, writing is an area that they see a big need in and having students get that daily writing practice helps them with their writing skills and their ability to share what they have learned.
While there is no way to test students on what they have learned over all during their time at camp this year, Burris shared “This is really an exploratory experience for them during the summer, but anecdotally we have noticed that there has been some success.” He shared “Just being able to see them doing some things with their hands, developmentally appropriate with their hands. For example, I noticed a student who couldn’t blow up a balloon earlier in camp, but by the end he was able to figure that out. Just little things that we see that may not be an academic skill that they can be tested on, but things that are kind of life skills.”
Burris shared his thoughts on why he thinks camps like this have become more popular for school districts to run during the summer months. “The idea is, they get a lot of direct instruction during the school year, they get a lot of what they have to get done working towards the state standards and those are really important things, but this allows them to do a little bit more exploratory, a little bit more project based that isn’t necessarily high stakes. I think that is a big draw for the kids, they just get to learn something and do something. Through that process they are learning a ton and doing a lot of really great things. I think that’s why it’s a big draw, it’s not very high pressure. They just get to come and do these projects that they see as fun and we get to sneak some learning in there also.”
This is the third year Annex has held a summer STEAM Camp and Burris shared he thought this year really went great, “We have had similar attendance each year and we are getting between about a fourth to a third of our students that are showing up for our STEAM Camps. For as small of a school as we are, to have this big of an attendance we have had and with regular attenders, it’s been great. From what the parents tell me the kids are really enjoying it, they come in excited to be here everyday.” In celebration of the end of camp Annex Charter School had Sterling Shaved Ice come out and make snow cones for all in attendance.
