5 Favorite Summer Camp Songs

Singing songs around the campfire is a favorite summer camp tradition and every evening the sound of campers enjoying their favorite tunes can be heard throughout the forest. While some songs are just silly, others hold deep meaning to those who attend summer camp every year. As you prepare for camp or reminisce about your most recent camp experience, here are some classic favorites that you can enjoy.

Boa Constrictor

This silly camp song is a favorite among young children who can chime in on the echo refrain if they are still learning the lyrics. The song, which lists each body part the boa constrictor is eating up until the very last gulp, was written by Shel Silverstein and published in 1962. Over the years, an upbeat tune was added to it and the musical group Peter, Paul and Mary, popularized it.

On Top of Old Smokey (Spaghetti)

It only takes a few strums of the guitar to make every camper’s face light up with recognition when this traditional folk song is played. Although no one is sure exactly where the song originated, it is known that Pete Seeger claims to have learned the lyrics in the Appalachian Mountains before setting them to music. Over the years, a parody version of the song in which campers sing about a pile of spaghetti has replaced the traditional version at camp.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

John Denver wrote this classic campfire love ballad, yet it was Peter, Paul and Mary that elevated its popularity. Older campers especially love just listening to the lyrics and singing along with the chorus. The soothing melody lends itself to being one of the last songs of the evening before campers retire to their cabin and many kids ask to learn how to play it in their music lessons. In fact, this is one of the first songs that many campers learn how to play on their guitar.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Most campers associate this catchy song with the movie, “The Lion King.” However, this song has roots that go as far back as the year 1939 when a singer named Solomon Linda first recorded it with his band. Throughout the years, it was covered by a number of musical artists, including The Tokens who transformed the song into the one most recognized today. Not only does the song bring to mind images of a sleeping, peaceful lion but it adds a multicultural element to summer camp song lists.

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How Wall Climbing Helps Kids Become More Confident

Healthy, challenging and fun, rock climbing can boost confidence in even the most timid child. Indoor rock climbing walls are ideal places to burn off youthful energy on steamy summer days, rainy spring afternoons or the icy weeks of winter vacation. Rock climbing, whether indoors or outdoors, is a super way to build self-esteem and confidence while honing muscle tone, stamina and life-long healthy habits. There are a multitude of ways in which this increasingly popular sport can build a ground work of self-confidence that will last for years. Because of this, you’ll notice more and more climbing walls for both kids and adults, whether in summer camps, amusement parks or conference centers.

Overcoming Fear

Rock climbing walls are a great way to learn how to confront and overcome fears in a safe, well-supervised environment. Whether your youngster is scared of falling or failure, climbing walls are the perfect place to move outside his or her comfort zone without any real fear of being hurt. Climbing walls feature all the latest in safety gear so that even slips and accidental falls pose no real danger, allowing kids to meet challenges head-on without potential for harm. Overcoming fear is a healthy part of growing up and becoming more confident and little climbers get a healthy dose of this valuable lesson.

A Sense of Achievement

Kids starting out rock climbing with a qualified instructor get the thrill of almost immediate improvement by the beginning of the first session, discovering they’re amazingly able to do things they wouldn’t have dreamed of just an hour earlier. Better yet, each subsequent climb offers that wonderful sense of achievement, even if they only get a little higher.

Honing Problem Solving Skills

Kids with good problem solving skills tend to do getter in school and later on in the workforce. There are loads of different routes to the “top of the mountain”, and climbing kids have to figure out the best and smoothest way to the top, a sort of physical puzzle. Planning and creativity all play a part in figuring out the optimum climb and building on these skills boosts kids’ self-confidence by leaps and bounds. Climbers can pick the easy route as novices and the hardest way to challenge themselves as they gain experience, allowing progress at each individual’s pace.

Building Strength

Physically fit kids tend to have higher levels of self-confidence and the hard work of scaling that wall is a great endurance-style workout with pulling, lifting, twisting and stretching helping youngsters improve flexibility, muscle strength and balance. The sport also encourages a love of fitness-related activities that can help lay the foundation for a lifetime of healthy living. Climbing requires more than just upper-body strength, it also relies on lower body strength, lean muscle mass and the ability to perform intricate footwork.

An Alternative to Team Youth Sports

Many youngsters can become intimidated by team sports where they can feel pressured or out of place. For these children, rock climbing offers a way to learn a new and challenging activity, one in which they can endlessly meet individual challenges and improve skills.

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