The Importance of Creativity...

Gemma Melton works in our UK Head Office and is part of our Activity Camp team. Her background is in Fine Art having graduated from Norwich University of the Arts. Her creative skills and passion for all things creative are leading the way to make our Activity Camps even more spectacular!  In this blog she talks about how important creativity at camp can be. 

Gemma writes: 'Arguably, children attend camp to participate in adventure and sports activities, but what is the ideal balance between sports, adventure and creativity? Can the two things occur simultaneously?

When you hear the words Arts and Crafts, you might think about knitting, maybe some sketching.  Well here at Xplore we have broadened our horizons and come to terms with the fact that most children have an app which overrides the tradition of these skills.

That is why we have devised creative themed sessions where children learn these important skills but under the disguise of a cool fun project!  Our creative sessions are no longer under the generic ‘Arts and Crafts’ title, but instead take the name of the activity, so for example ‘Rocket Making’ or ‘Build a City’. 

We have also added free courses to our new programme for 2014, with a particular focus on learning new skills within a creative subject area. For example we have Fashion Design, Art and Design, Multimedia and even a Dance and Fitness course to get you cutting some great shapes on the dance floor! Keep checking our website for more details on these free and fun courses.   

This is all very well but you might ask, what is the need for creative sessions as part of a Multi Activity Programme? Well, we see these as some time-out from the fast paced life at camp. We want children to engage with their artistic side, as this brings out many qualities associated with child development. For example it can build confidence, improve problem solving skills and attention to detail.  

Children learn through playing and being resourceful as suggested by research into early education.  The bottom line is, children are makers and discover things by working with materials rather than through direct instruction.

To incorporate some of these ideals in to our sessions we can incorporate movement, take our sessions outside of the typical classroom, play music and allow sessions to work within a flexible structure.

However, in order to keep this programme in line with our adventure ethos, we must be resourceful and environmentally friendly by up-cycling, creating work spaces outside and using the surroundings to fuel creativity. With such beautiful landscapes surrounding our centres, it would be silly not to utilise this.

In a recent survey of 100 customers, 70% agreed that creativity is important, and we feel it’s development is essential. But as our most popular activity as voted for by our customers, remains to be quad biking, we’re left racking our brains for some sort of quad biking art-a-thon..!'

Children enjoying making Halloween themed decorations to scare their parents when they came to collect them that evening!

These boys decided to make a crazy full body skeleton costume. It was a perfect fit and look great at the Halloween ball.