A Great First Week

Thank you families for being part of our first week of Nature Ninjas Summer Camp. It's been a lovely adventure each day with your children.

We look forward to seeing most of you next Monday. For those who aren't continuing next week, it's been great to have you and we look forward to seeing you again soon!

Ms. Annie & Jovina are leaving for the mainland tomorrow, Friday, and asked me to share the below message.* More information on who's helping us next week, and what your children did this past week is also below.

Aloha! Coach Gabe & Team

PHOTOS OF CAMP AVAILABLE HERE

(this blog is only for camp attendees, which is why i'm posting the link here)

Constructive Feedback?

Please email both Rebekah and I at: gabe@mindfulmartialarts.org, rebekahharbour@gmail.com

Positive Feedback?

What did you and your children like or love? We want to hear it, and we'd love for you to share it with others who might be interested. Please send it to us at the email addresses above and/or Review us on Google. Thank you.

From Annie:

Dear Nature Ninja Families, I just want to take a minute to give a huge thank you to you all and your kiddos for welcoming me so warmly to camp this week. Coming from West Virginia, I didn't know what to expect but I came with a "Mary Poppins carpet bag" filled with things to share. Your children have been so open and kind and gentle and warm in their embrace of new songs, new art projects, new sensory experiences and new mindfulness exercises. I head back home tomorrow but will take with me the warmth of this community. How grateful we feel to Gabe and Rebekah for hosting my daughter and I for this special week. The school I own and direct is Rainbow Montessori School and one of my favorite parts of this week was the rainbow that rose above the parking lot one morning as the nature ninjas came into camp for the day. Feel free to reach out: rainbowmschool@gmail.com Aloha!

New Teachers Coming In

Gigi & Patrice will be joining Rebekah and I next week for Week 2 of Nature Ninjas Summer Camp. Both Gigi and Patrice have decades of experience working as head teachers and specialists within public and private schools here on Maui and on the mainland. Gigi was most recently the preschool teacher for Carden Academy above Pukalani, has been running after care for us this week, and will continue to run it in the following weeks as well. We are sure you and your children will love them, and we are thrilled that they accepted to work with us this summer!

What We Covered

While I can't speak much to the art side of things, I would love to share here what I covered with your children in the workshops portion of the day.

Work/Play-shops

Age-appropriate holistic self-defense with a ninja twist, included discussions of how we use the BATA framework (Breathe, Ask, Tell, Act), and practicing of its execution with a persistent and obnoxiously curious "dragon" that kept invading the children's space.

An example of how we mixed play, make-believe, and important personal defense skills.

First we all called and invited the dragon to play (because we never play rough without asking or being asked).

Then the dragon helped the children warm up by chasing them around the mat (with the children running away and screaming in joy).

Then, as the children transformed into rooted trees, incapable of running away, they had to learn how to Breathe (mindfully breathing, calming themselves and also generate kindness and well wishes for others), Ask (asking the dragon a question to confuse it and redirect it), Tell (telling the dragon "I don't like that. Please stop"), and finally Act (to put their hands up and block the dragon from getting too close).

I blew bubbles and talked about "personal space bubbles" and about how we can tell people, "hey you're in our bubble."

We practiced Ninja Rolls and did Dragon Rides (teaching some basic powerful Jiu-Jitsu techniques), and learned how to break grips and break falls, and more.

The younger group really loved pretending to be trees and other animals. I loved seeing how connected they are with their imagination and how this really motivates them to experiment with new movement patterns with each other.

We didn't do all things with all groups, but all in all, we did a lot, learned a lot, moved a lot, and the kids had fun.

Big Group Activities...

Included hikes across the property (some more adventure-filled than others), water play (with a pool, re-usable water balloons, a slip and slide, and a good old-fashioned sprinkler). We had sensory play with beans and shaving cream and sand-pit fun and balls and frisbees and bubbles, and magnetiles, and stories and delicious and thoughtful snacks, and conversation-rich facillitated lunch times.

By the end of the week, kids seemed happy and exhausted. We had some gratuitous tears towards the end of the last day that were mostly about being over-tired from so much sun and fun. A spontaneous story to cheer up one particular camper immediately transformed into an all-camp experience, as the thought of lying down and being read to was irresistible to all.

I think it was a pretty great first week of Nature Ninjas Summer Camp. Thanks for helping us to make it happen!