Submitted
With COVID 19 rocking every faucet of normalcy in both formal and informal social settings, Light of Christ Catholic Schools had to make last-minute plans to promote literacy for our students and, for all our children impacted by school shut-downs that became effective in March 2020.
One of our components was called “Pages in the Park Pop Up Tents.” We hired two teachers and bought 30 outdoor sunshade tents so that we could adhere to the most recent Saskatchewan Health Authority guidelines and gather no more than 30 people outside, six feet apart.
Pages in the Park ran from Monday to Thursday from noon to 2:30 for three weeks, with Fridays reserved as an alternate day in case of poor weather during the Monday-Thursday. We rotated locations between our in-town school playgrounds (Holy Family, St. Mary’s, Notre Dame and EMBM).
Participants who arrived at Pages in the Park were given a choice of theme book from the day (such as Earth Day, Hero Day or Science Day), and allowed to select two books of their choice from the library tents.
Participants also got to participate in various activities, as arranged by the camp co-ordinators each day.
The school/community mental health liaison also attended each day.
The format of the camp allowed for a greater variety in the age of participants – which was especially nice to see given the current world situation and the local context of school being out since March.
On average the camp reached between 30 and 40 kids per day.
Approximately two thirds of the camp participants returned or were repeat attendees
Parent comments:
“Loved that this was a free event and gave something for kids to do that wasn’t screen time.” – Bready parent
“The variety of books was great. My boys discovered Fractured Fairy tales and loved them. I encouraged them to pick a few different titles and it expanded their area of interest.” – Janaia Burnett
“I like that it was drop in. Come when you can vs the three-week commitment. Summer is short and three weeks is a long time. My son enjoyed the pop-up tents better than the day camp, enjoyed the activities, the programming was very generous with the amount of books they gave out.” – A Holy Family parent
“It was a great family time to get our books then sit and read them together and then play at the nearby play equipment.” – A Bready School parent
