After teaching executive function skills in an after-school program, we felt the students needed something more concentrated and spread over a concentrated period of time. This would give them new skills to start the next school year. We envisioned a camp that would provide them these new skills while also building their self-confidence about a successful next school year. Project Boost is the name of this one-week camp. We wrote the curriculum for the camp ourselves and taught it for five years. In some cases, we held two sessions per summer. The students exceeded our wildest expectations, both in what they learned and how they felt about the camp. We gathered information about each student, wrote an individual plan with them, and helped them learn what they had agreed they needed to learn. There was a lot of group activity in the form of choral responses and activities to practice social-emotional and behavioral strategies they were learning. Successes were celebrated, and every student left with a success plan for the next year to share with their parents and teacher!
Project Boost Sample Schedule for Camp Day 1 (8:45-12:15)
- Executive Functioning Skills Assessment, Goal Setting, Start to Develop the Student Game Plan (EF Skill – Planning)
- Who Moved My Cheese (EF Skill – Cognitive Flexibility and Cognitive Shifting)
- Memory Walk (EF Skill – Working Memory, Focusing, Sequencing)
- How Do I Spend My Time Activity (EF Skill – Time Management)
- Scheduling and Planning our End of Camp Celebration (EF Skill – Scheduling, Planning)
- Computer Time (EF Skill -Home Key ABC Keyboarding, Written Communication)
- Completing Digital Activities and Beginning Digi Poem