Opening Day of Camp!

Created: June 22, 2023 | by Camp Galil

And so it begins…

Welcome to the first day of the first session at Camp Galil of 2023! We welcomed our campers to machane and hung out for a while making pita and playing games in front of the mini mo. Julia took some families on a tour around to see all the exciting places around the campsite. After saying our goodbyes, each kvutzah (age group) went back to their shetach (living area) to get to know each other and go over some rules. Building kvutzah starts right away with sharing names and pronouns and playing some games together. We also went over some of the rules to keep everyone safe and happy. Then, each kvutzah went around machane on another tour to learn more specifically about our specialists (the garden/ gan specialists and the art/ beit omanut specialist) as well our mitbach/kitchen staff, nurses and mazkirut. While getting introduced to the specialists they got to meet our goats and learn about the different roles people play to make the summer camp magic happen.

After getting to know everyone, we all headed to the Toran for “shira”, or singing time, to learn some songs all together. We moved on to hitkansut erev, our evening flag ceremony where each kvutzah brings their ruach (spirit) to the forefront when announcing they were all present and ready for the evening to start. Hitkansut led to dinner, where mitbach served some delicious chicken and veggie nuggets along with a salad bar. Then we jumped up on the benches and sang classic camp songs at the top of our lungs, including “In Russia of Old” which we’d learned earlier at shirah. During Tochnit Erev (evening activity) the madrichimot (counselors) performed different skits to explain the different chuggim (special interest activities) the chanichimot (kids) could choose to participate in. After choosing what chug they wanted for the session, they went to bed after a long day of getting back into camp life, and getting excited for the session to come.