In the remarkable place called «Recreation centre Parus» in the Leningrad Region, Russia, an International summer camp of Formula of Unity took place from July 1 to July 15. It was an anniversary for the Formula and, of course, we wanted to make the year special. And so it was, thanks to the work of team leaders, teachers, and children.
To begin with, it was the first time when the majority of group leaders and assistant teachers were former trainees of the Formula: Elena Burlakova, Lyudmila Ukrainian, Mikhail Solokhin, Victoria Rebtsovskaya, Maria Karlukova and our Spanish friends — Miguel Campillo, Antonio Florez, Manuel Loja, Pedro Perez, and Enrique Calvo. They were assisted by group leaders who had also just graduated our Pedagogical school, though they had already worked in one camp: Arina Lapina, Valentina Ryazantseva, Natalia Soldaeva, Alexei Gruntov, and Kirill Kochetov.
The process was monitored by the most experienced Formula leaders: Anastasia Kovtun, Natalia Glushkova, Alena Patrusheva, and Julia Loginova with the help of the senior leader Anna Lebedeva.
There were also such great teachers as Pavel Mulenko (computer science), Galina Kovtun and Alina Chebanova (journalism), Andrey Mereshchenko (chemistry), Julia Pavlova (art), Julia Petrova (mathematics), Lubov Koreshkova (mathematics), Andrei Kopchuk (mathematics), Miguel Angel Curto Rogado (mathematics), Cesareo Gonsalez (mathematics).
The participants came from Russia, Israel, Ukraine, Estonia, Spain, the USA. A total of 63 children took part in this event.
The time was divided into 3 periods: social, scientific and creative where each period contained new games, quests, and collective-creative activities, which are unique methods and we are very proud of them.
During the social period, we tried to talk with the participants about friendship, relations, socially important matters. The scientific period was entirely devoted to the sciences. The most memorable thing in this period is the role-playing game «Night of the Triffids». The participants all together searched for a cure against blindness and both teams won by finding a doctor and listening to his advice.
The last period was all about creativity. The days were filled with thoughts of music, theatre and literature. During this period, most children created new theatres: a theatre of fire, pantomime, backstage theatre and others. After that, the participants had to improvise on stage: they played new roles, read poems with different intonations, in other words, tried acting.
After asking a few group leaders, we have found out:
- what the most memorable thing was during the camp,
- and what difficulties they encountered with.
- For some reasons I can’t recall anything special, everything was fine, at the same level.
- It was very difficult to work with my partners because they were not completely familiar with the methodology of our work :(
Natalia Soldaeva
- I think it was «The Day of Secrets and Mysteries», when everyone came up with some sort of a quest for another group. All children went crazy about it, all guys happily did something, invented and created things. It was wonderful!
- For me, it was sometimes difficult to make guys do what had to be done and to communicate in English.
Alexey Gruntov
- «Craftsmen’s City».
- It was difficult to communicate with the group, to keep calm.
Arina Lapina
- Activities: the fair, performances, role-playing games.
- Lack of experience, of knowledge, of sleep :)
Mikhail Solokhin
During the camp we «survived» some chemical experiments, one-and-a-half-hour lecture, evening shows… Every day was filled with new events and discoveries. I want to believe that the children remember every day and this experience helps them to have become a little better and to have learnt something new about themselves.
