Week Three 2013

With only three days this week, we worked hard to pack as much fun and excitement into each day as possible.  By the looks of many campers and counselors alike at the end of the day today, it seems we have succeeded! :)

Campers experienced many Fourth of July-themed activities this week, including creating liquid "fireworks" at Science, writing our own HPR Constitution, and creating our own American flags.  In addition to these holiday activities, many campers were able to ride horses out into the pasture this week (a change of scenery for both the campers AND the horses!), participate in NASCAR races around the mound, and continue the exhilarating hunt for even more fairies around camp! 

The LIT campers, well-rested after last week's overnight, visited Feed My Starving Children on Tuesday and prepared enough meals to feed 75 children one meal a day for a year!  The LITS also spent Wednesday with the Kindergarteners preparing fake snot as a part of their health-themed week.

The Middle School campers visited Good Samaritan on Wednesday and participated in many off-site bike trips to canoeing and nearby parks for sports activities like speedball.  Lucky for the rest of us, they also cooked extra banana coffee cake for many of us to enjoy in the garage!

As mentioned above, the Kindergarteners participated in many health-related activities this week and searched for germs all over camp!  They participated in a scavenger hunt for "good" and "bad" foods, handed out "glitter germs" and then finished off the week getting cleaned off in human bubbles.

We sent off the campers with a camp-wide line dance to Bruce Springsteen's "American Land" on the tennis court and are excited to see what next week has in store!

Have a safe Fourth of July and we'll see you next week!

 Want to see all of the fun? Check out our Facebook page photo albums!

Week Two 2013

Wow! What a week! Week Two was so much fun and may have been our busiest week yet! We had so many exciting things going on I wouldn't be surprised if our campers slept the entire weekend to catch up! Especially our Middle Schoolers and LITs who came back from a two day overnight at William O'Brien State Park. They worked hard, played hard and made a lot of memories. 

The theme of this week in Faith building was Kindness. Campers had the chance to say mean words and hit a cardboard person with paint. We all apologized and wiped some of the paint away and learned that saying sorry is excellent, but using kind words instead of mean ones is always better. 

We also had a Wild West themed Friday full of line dancing, steer roping, cow milking and lots of cowboys and cowgirls! We loved seeing everyone's costumes!

Our Kindergarteners enjoyed a transportation themed week, building cars, going to "car washes" and "drive-in movies", and learning about many different kinds of vehicles. Look at those smiles!

 Our 3rd annual HPR Hunger Games was also on Friday. Campers had the opportunity to volunteer as tributes and compete against more than 100 other campers and counselors for the title of Hunger Games Champion. It was an adventure with lots of drama and excitement! We ran, we hid, we conquered! It was a huge success!

If that wasn't enough, we had a counselor talent show to showcase all the great talent our staff of counselors have. Campers had a fantastic time seeing their role models get up in front of everyone, some were funny, some were amazing, but all were inspiring!

It was a huge week, but if you still want more, check out all of the memories on our Facebook page!

Week One 2013

As we begin a new week, it is hard to believe that we are already done with Week One of the HPR season!  This past week has been filled with welcoming new faces, reuniting with familiar ones, and wasting no time diving back into the excitement.

Highlights of the week for Traditional Camp include cooking at Nature Camp Craft (what could go wrong with lots of dough, butter, and kids?!), learning new songs at Explore, perfecting soccer skills at Sportsfield, and discovering that activities at Science can actually be REALLY fun!  Campers were also introduced to their first Fruit of the Spirit, self control, in Faith Building and will continue to focus on a different attribute each week.

In addition to the Traditional Camp, the Kindergarten, Middle School and LIT programs are also in full swing.  The kindergarteners spent their week learning about bugs, and ran all around camp with magnifying glasses to investigate all of the creepy crawlies HPR has to offer.  For many of them, this week was their first "real camp" experience and we are so pleased to see so many of them loving every minute of it!  

The Middle School campers spent their first week engaged in team building activities and took their first trip to Feed My Starving Children on Friday.  Preparations for next week's overnight are well underway and it already looks to be a very fun trip.  The LIT campers spent time meeting the traditional camper groups they will be assisting, getting to know each other better, and preparing for their role as the oldest kids at camp.  We are also so excited for their own overnight next week and cannot wait to see them return energized and closer than ever!

We wrapped up the week with a Friday theme of "Let's Play Ball," which included Mushroom Ball (HPR's own special version of dodgeball), a Punt, Pass, Kick competition, a basketball relay, and exciting team building activities.  The costumes for this Friday did, however, cause a bit of a rivalry as campers and counselors alike poured out of cars in both Packers and Vikings jerseys!  Regardless, it was GREAT to see so many campers in costume and we hope this continues throughout the summer!

We are so lucky to have 7 more weeks to go at HPR!  Look forward to hearing all about an exciting Week Two and the Counselor Talent Show on Friday!


Want more pictures from Week One? Check out our Facebook Page!

3 Day Camp 2013

As we are beginning this week of Traditional camp, we are already missing many of our 3-Day campers!  We were blessed with a fantastic three days filled with great activities, cooperating weather (mostly!), and a terrific crew of kids. 

While we were only together for a short time, we packed in plenty of great activities for the campers.  Highlights included making s'mores over the campfire, getting up on horseback (many for the very first time), and exhaustive hunts for the numerous unicorns and fairies currently residing at the ranch!

In addition to the scheduled morning activities (Archery, Faith Building, Nature Camp Craft, Tennis, Horses, Canoeing, Science, Explore, Arts & Crafts, and Sportsfield), campers signed up for a wide variety of special afternoon activities that were created by our staff.  These were opportunities for our campers and counselors to get to know each other on a more personal level as they participated in these often silly and creative times together later in the day.

Friday, however, was easily the craziest day of the week!  Themed "2x2 Day," counselors did their best to represent Noah's Ark.  We were ready to greet the campers in the morning decked out as raindrops, cardboard representations of the ark, and a few too many elephants and cats!  We were so excited to see that many campers also joined in the Friday costume fun, which is always encouraged. 

 

Special Friday activities included a camp-wide scavenger hunt, animal call telephone, fishes and whales, and other animal activities related to Noah's ark.

As we say goodbye to the 3-Day campers, and already miss them at HPR, we want to say THANK YOU for bringing your awesome kids to camp.  We enjoyed every bit of their time here and hope to see them again next year!


Want to see more pictures of all the fun we had? Check out our Facebook Page!

Summer 2012

Hello Friends! 

It was a terrific summer and we hope that all our campers are off to a great start of a new school year. We had so much fun this summer; it is hard to believe camp has been over for several weeks! 

Even though some time has passed, we look back on the summer with fond memories. We were so lucky to see so many campers take a chance and perform in front of a crowd for our Play and Horse Show. There were 80 kids involved in the play and another 75 in the horse show. Way to go! Not only did our campers learn and grow, but they made a difference in the world. This summer HPR, through our work with Feed My Starving Children, fed thousands of hungry children across the world.  We also raised over $1,500 dollars for the American Cancer Society – thank you to all the families that donated!

This summer was a blast and it may be over, but HPR is already thinking about all the fun we will have next year! We even have the dates for next year's camp sessions! 

HPR 2013

June 12th-June 15th : 3 Day Camp

June 17th-August 9th : Traditional Camp Programs

July 4th-5th : Off for Holiday

August 12th-August 16th : Extended Camp Programming 

We have got lots of new ideas we'll be working on over the winter that we are really excited about! Remember to check back with us in January and we'll tell you all about them! We wish everyone a fantastic year and we can't wait to see your happy faces next summer!

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Last Week Announcements

A couple announcements about common questions we've been receiving:

HPR's production of Snow White is this Thursday August 9th at 3pm and everyone is invited! Campers involved in the play, including those not normally scheduled for Thursdays, should plan on arriving in the morning and will then be spending the full day in rehearsal. It is not your responsibility to provide a costume for your camper, but if you have any props or costumes you'd like to bring in you can bring it on Thursday. Please label anything you send to camp so we make sure it gets home! Thank you so much, the entire cast is really excited to share our hard work with you!  If you want to watch the play, you are more than welcome to come and see what the campers have been working on.  We hope to see you here.

HPR's Annual Horse Show Starts at 9am on Friday August 10th. Every camper was invited to participate and those that chose to do so are incredibly excited to share their skills with you. There are a lot of riding games you'll have the opportunity to watch like Simon Says, Extreme Red light Green Light, Barrels and more! Parents are welcome to attend amd take plenty of pictures from outside the riding ring but please no flash photography. We hope to see you for all our fun!

We will have a lot of cars for our big events this week so as you come in to visit just follow the driveway and turn left into the staff parking lot/early pickup area. We'll have more than enough room for everyone!

Hope to see you soon for an exciting end to a great summer!

Week Seven 7/30-8/3

Wow! We can't believe it but we just finished week seven of our summer and there is only one more week left! We spent this week learning about the world from our oldest campers, the LITs. They worked really hard to plan out our theme Friday and they did a fantastic job! Some of their preparation involved listening to stories from some of our counselors that have had experiences abroad. Not only did they learn about many different countries, our LITs and Middle school campers also served the world by volunteering at Feed My Starving Children. HPR packed food to feed over 160 children for an entire year. Way to serve the world HPR!

Our Middle School campers have been enjoying a new morning lesson structure that they are enjoying tremendously. Our counselors have been offering very unique choices for our campers to pick between every morning, we've seen Russian lessons, philosophy discussions, ultimate frisbee, even bird house building. It has been a lot of fun to see our camper's interests growing! Middle School also enjoyed a fantastic trip to Como Zoo and a water park on Friday which was a blast!

We've been filling our last two weeks with tons of exciting trips for every group at camp! Bike trips, overnights, service projects, playing at the beach, and a canoe trip, just to name a few. It has been so much fun to challenge our campers with unique experiences and they have been growing so much from them. Our final traditional camp overnight was a tremendous success, it was a perfect night for camping   with an absolutely gorgeous full moon. What a treat!

Another reminder that the penny wars begin on Monday so save your loose change so we can have fun and help the American Cancer Society! Also they big HPR production of Snow White is Thursday August 9th at 3pm and we would love to share our hard work with you! We hope you are having as much fun this weekend as we have all week! See you on Monday!