Spend the Day with Smirklings!
Editor’s Note: This post was written by Camp Photographer & Communications Assistant Will Ciardelli
Smirkus Camp is officially up and running for the summer! Our second weekend at camp was the Smirkling for a Day camp. The campers and their families arrived to our campus bright and early with an 8:00am dropoff, ready for a full day of circus. We started the day in our acro tent Natalie with a full group warm up, to get everyone’s body energized and ready for the day’s activities. Once the campers were warm, they moved from tent to tent in their smaller rotation groups taking classes and learning some important foundational skills, and some awesome tricks. In the aerial tent, campers learned basic shapes on the lyra and the trapeze, and then moved to the next tent to learn the basics of juggling three balls! Campers in our clowning tent Ruby learned some fun ways to engage with an audience and even some miming skills such as creating an invisible wall that you are stuck behind – a timeless bit.
In between rotations, our campers met at the balance barn for a quick fruity snack. There was some focused and intense training to get ready for the end of camp showcase that would be performed for their parents. Afterwards, everyone got together and played a few games of tag which was just all too fun.
At around 5:00pm, parents were waiting excitedly to see what their little ones had learned in their time at Smirkus were quickly escorted to the tents for the showcase. It’s safe to say everybody had an absolute blast, smiles and happy faces were all that could be seen on our little spot on the hill.
The next day, Smirkus Camp welcomed the next group of campers for our one week All Levels camp! We began our load in process around 2:00pm and campers began trickling in unpacking and spending time in the green space near the dorms. We soon transitioned into some ice breakers and name games so we could all get to know each other.
Afterwards we headed to dinner and our first dinner dress up theme of the summer: Hats! Campers came into the mess hall with quite a variety of interpretations of this theme, from double stacked baseball hats to whatever they could fit and balance on their heads! It was quite the site to see! We can’t wait to see what this next week brings as we head towards their showcase at the end of the week! Stay tuned!
