About Camp Bluebird
Camp Philosophy
The Camp Bluebird Program is designed to foster the social, emotional, physical, sensory, and intellectual well-being of each child through our program on a farm based setting. Our focus is on creating a safe and nurturing environment that offers opportunities for exploration and discovery. We strive to develop curiosity, imagination, self-esteem, caring for others, and the ability to play both cooperatively and independently. We are committed to expanding community access to recreational and social programs for children with developmental disabilities.
The program is multi-sensory. At Camp Bluebird, experiences are provided in a fun, structured, and encouraging environment to encourage growth in the following areas:
• Life Skills
• Social Skills
• Play Skills
We also include a healthy dose of fine & gross motor coordination (outside play time twice a day around the farm), sensory integration, cognitive & adaptive skills, socio-emotional development, and language development every day — all through lots and lots of fun and play!
Program
The program emphasizes the development of the “whole child.” Learning activities are designed to match the developmental stages of each child, regardless of age. Attention is directed at the process and pleasure of discovery in each project, and NOT on the final product.
Quality teachers and staff offer an integrated approach to recreation and learning, skillfully building on what children can do, and challenging them to try new things. Animal care, horticulture, art, music, simple cooking, science, movement, dramatic and imaginative play, creative activities, life skills, social skills, and play skills are linked together as they are explored, all while having fun on our 28-acre farm. Camp Bluebird will incorporate therapeutic ideals from many disciplines: therapeutic recreation, TEACCH, Applied Behavioral Analysis, Verbal Behavior, and Sensory Integration. However, Camp Bluebird is not a mental health program or a treatment program, we are strictly recreational. While our staff and volunteers attend introductory training, they do not implement therapeutic programs. Rather our goal is for the staff to have an understanding of these methods and to incorporate these ideas into daily recreational and learning activities.