By: Pamela Stern
For the first time, the Spring Creek After School Program held a Winter Holiday Camp from December 27th to December 29th from 9am to 5pm for the children in the Spring Creek Towers’ (SCT) community ages six to eleven. There were a total of 18 students who participated in this Winter Holiday Camp.
The children were able to engage in multiple activities where they had sessions in arts and crafts (where they created snowflakes out of construction paper and friendship bracelets), team-building games (Minute to Win It and board games), and they also had some physical fitness activities where all of the children were included in team sports. Other activities allowed the students to become involved in academic learning and enrichment learning.
The featured activity that the students were excited to take part in was learning how to make some of their favorite foods with Fork Flavor Catering. The cooking segments took place in the Brooklyn Sports Club’s (BSC) kitchen. The children learned to make Italian Ravioli with authentic pasta sauce that they made from scratch. Before they started the lesson the children learned cutting techniques, which included how to properly prep the ingredients for their ravioli. While the children were learning how to make the ravioli from scratch, they also learned how to prepare the ingredients to fill in the ravioli.
Additionally, the students learned how to make pizza. While they were learning how to make pizza, they were able to experience how to roll their dough to perfection, prep their toppings, and understand how to cook their pizzas to perfection.
“I believe offering this opportunity to the community was a great idea; I was happy to support the families and see the welcoming smiles on the children’s faces. The children were happy to be in a space where every day there was something new and different to engage in,” said Randi Ray, Program Director of the Spring Creek After School Program.
The feedback that Ray received from the parents was very positive and extremely thankful. The parents were glad that this program was offered to the community, and they were thankful that their children were able to make new fiends and have the opportunity to participate in the activities that help build their skills while they are also having fun. One parent stated, “I am thankful you guys offered this program for my child. I was able to get things in order at home and have time to decompress after the holiday excitement.” Another parent stated, “I was happy to make this choice of enrolling my child in the program they were able to be around children their own age and learn how to cook. This was too perfect; I will be enrolling my child again.”
Please watch out for flyers for upcoming programs like this one which will be offered during the upcoming Mid-Winter and Spring Recess Break.
Photos courtesy of The Spring Creek After School Winter Holiday Camp
