When I was a kid, Vacation Bible Schools became all the rage in Protestant churches. I remember going each year for games, crafts and hopefully a little Bible-learning as well. In recent years, many Catholic churches have also had VBS programs, and many of them are quite valuable.

A formerly-homeschooled college student in my area, however, had a great idea. She held a Latin Camp this week for kids grades 5-8. Her description of the camp:

This camp will teach common Latin vocabulary and regular verbs drawing from the Latina Christiana word lists; however,this will not be conducted in a normal classroom environment. In fact, no time will be spent doing “schoolwork”! Activities such as playing sports, drawing, putting on skits, nature walks, cooking, etc. will be the means by which the students will learn related Latin words and concepts. By the end of the week each will have created their own illustrated Latin dictionary and will be able to “act out” the verbs and vocabulary they have learned.

My oldest daughter participated and she really enjoyed it – it made all the Latin she learned last year more fun and memorable. I attended the end-of-camp puppet shows earlier today and was able to see “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” (my daughter was the father bear), “Three Little Pigs,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” performed exclusively in Latin by the youngsters.

If anyone is interested in having a similar camp in their area, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the young lady who put this one together.

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