June 29, First Quest

The campers are here, they arrived yesterday afternoon and today was the first full day of camp. Today was also the first day that I had to teach a quest. I was really nervous, I wasn't sure what to expect. Thankfully, we only had girls today, so no monkey's fists. It turned out to be fine. The girl I worked with and I each took a table and gave instructions. The craft is basically just stringing beads, so the girls didn't need much help. I was surprised to see how happy they were just to talk and do their craft. They didn't need to be entertained and they didn't complain or ask to do something else instead. This was very encouraging, I began to feel more confident about teaching quests in general. It also showed me that if you want to give kids a craft to do, it pays to pick something easy and something that will be useful to them in the future. The girl's craft was pretty self-explanatory and they can wear the bracelets. This craft was both easy and useful. On the other hand, the monkey's fist is very difficult and there's not much you can do with them after you finish. I'm not sure that the boy's will like their craft as much. In the future, if I ever have to choose a craft for kids to do, I will keep this in mind.
The only problem was that a couple girls finished early and we didn't have anything for them to do. I want to try and think up something for them to work on when they're done.
This craft was very successful. It helped me with two of my goals. The project was very easy, so the projects did turn out really well and the girls were very able to complete my instructions. I like to think that this was, just a little bit, because I exercised good leadership in showing them what to do. I also think the girls felt accomplished and confident after completing the craft. They seemed happy and the bracelets look really good. It also helped me complete my learning objectives- initiating this activity was a new challenge.