Another day of Camp Discover goes by, more exciting than the last. Campers were given a wide array of choices for today’s “optionals,” where campers get to select an activity to participate in after classes end. Today’s choices included some camp classics, like Capture the Flag and Ultimate Frisbee, as well as some indoor fun with 3D printing and making slime. My optional today was another camp classic, one that I played when I went to camp years ago, a game called Mafia. In Mafia, each player is given a role, such as civilian, doctor, sheriff, or mafia. The goal of the game is for the civilians to work together to vote out the mafia members, but without revealing each other’s roles. Each person must make accusations, defend themselves, and detective out the mafia members to save the “town.” My favorite part of running the game is watching the eliminated player’s faces when they find out who the mafia is, but they can’t say a word about it.
Games like these are great for the kids to talk to people they wouldn’t otherwise, especially since to properly accuse someone, you have to say their name. Its amazing how quickly they start to get comfortable around each other when they have to defend their own good names against a table pointing fingers at them for a crime they didn’t commit.
We ended the day with a visit with the Kona Ice truck, which was nice to have in the heat this summer. All of the campers sat out on the Colonnades and enjoyed the shaved ice as the sun set, closing out the third day of Camp Discover 2. Its hard to believe there’s only 2 and a half days left, even for us counselors having been here all summer. The Gifted Studies summer camps are drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean we’re done just yet. We’ll finish off just as strong as we started, to give these kids a summer to remember at Camp Discover.