Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Kids flock to school during break
Adventure Club program attracts 300 children to Elm Tree
It’s spring break, but the classrooms and halls at Bentonville’s Elm Tree Elementary School are bustling with activity this week.
Elm Tree is hosting a camp run by Adventure Club, the Bentonville School District’s before- and after-school program. About 300 children representing each of the district’s 10 elementary schools and four middle schools are participating.
Kids can be dropped off as early as 6 a.m. and picked up as late as 6 p.m. It’s one option for those working parents who stayed home for the break.
Kristin Barnes’ daughter Sophi, a second-grader at Central Park Elementary School, is enrolled in Adventure Club. Barnes said she doesn’t know what she and her husband would do without the program’s spring break camp.
“It would be tough,” Barnes said. “I would probably have to take off from work. It would be difficult. It’s definitely nice to have the option.”
Other Northwest Arkansas establishments are also dealing with a lot more children than usual this week.
The Boys & Girls Club of Fayetteville runs two camps during spring break drawing about 125 kids per day, said Kyle Scogin, the club’s director of operations. They watch movies, swim, climb the rock wall, use the computers and do art activities.
Besides the campers, the club sees another 15 to 30 families come in to use the facility each day, he said.
“It’s kids all day long, instead of kids at 3:00,” Scogin said, referring to the time kids arrive on school days.
The Jones Center in Springdale doesn’t have any camps going this week, but it does have special events.
Jake Lane, marketing and communications manager, estimated by the end of this week, the center will have seen at least 10,000 kids come through the doors.
“Spring break week is a really big deal for us,” Lane said. “It’s important because a lot of businesses and organizations are closed during spring break, but there are a lot of people who stay around, and if they don’t
have something to do with their kids that’s unfortunate.”
In Bentonville, elementary and middle school has an Adventure Club that meets on site, but for the spring break camp those clubs all meet in the same place.
“It works great,” Barnes said. “A little farther away than what we’re used to at Central Park, but other than the drive, it’s been great.”
The Survivor television series is the camp’s theme this year. Adventure Club groups from each school made and decorated totem poles using recycled items like boxes and plastic bottles. Those totem poles are displayed in Elm Tree’s cafeteria; on Friday, staff members will vote on the best one.
The children wear “buffs,” or headbands, like the real Survivor contestants do. There’s a different dress-up theme each day; Monday, for example, was warrior face paint day, and Wednesday was the time to dress like
Survivor host Jeff Probst. Adventure Club tries to do a different theme for each camp it runs when schools aren’t in session.
“It keeps it fresh for the kids, keeps them entertained,” said Casey Henry, an Adventure Club team leader. “And they really do get excited for this kind of stuff.”
Adventure Club costs families $60 per week during the school year, $ 120 per week during the summer. The program strives to create an educational environment for students, Henry said.
“We’re not babysitters here,” Henry said. “We’re teachers, we’re educators. And a lot of people get that mixed up. They think, beforeand after-school program, oh, that’s day care. No, it’s not.”
At the camp, students are grouped by the school they’re from and work with the same Adventure Club teachers they normally have. They have scheduled times for art, computer lab and a “game room” where they can play board games or electronic games.
Cole Dors er ,8, a third-grader at Willowbrook Elementary School, has been part of Adventure Club since he was in kindergarten.
“I like playing with my friends. Playing tag,” Cole said.
On Tuesday, he and his Adventure Club classmates were in the art room molding clay into miniature tiki masks.