Summer is nearly upon Siloam Springs and with it comes a range of camps for kids to get them outside and keep hands and minds active.
The city of Siloam Springs is facilitating four camps this year. Siloam Springs Recreational Coordinator Libby Garrison is running one of those camps; a kids triathlon camp.
The triathlon camp will be from July 5 to July 8 and is meant to help kids prepare for a triathlon that will be held on July 9. Garrison said the camp will teach kids the course and help them practice transitioning between events, in addition to serving as practice for running, biking and swimming.
Garrison said the camps in the past have been about 20 to 30 kids and are useful even for kids that have done triathlons before because it serves as a refresher and helps teach the course.
Another one of the city's popular camps is the ceramics camp, Garrison said. The ceramics camp is for kids ages 7 to 12 and will run from June 27 to July 1.
Participants will get the chance to work with different kinds of ceramics and learn about the different types. At the end of the week, kids will create a project that will be fired in a kiln, which will harden the ceramic and make it more durable. The project will be returned after the camp so kids and their families can keep the ceramic project.
"The kids love it," Garrison said. "You can keep that forever."
Another camp available through the city is a horse camp, which will be a combination of learning about horses and learning to ride them. The horse camp will be taught by Lori Perdue, who is a co-director with the Rodeo of the Ozarks Rounders, at the Isuba Valley Horse Park.
The camp is three hours a day for a week. There are two sections offered. This year, Perdue said she will be trying something new by combining the beginner camps and intermediate camps to run at the same time.
When Perdue started teaching the camp eight years ago, it was just meant for beginners. She said the plan was to just teach a new batch of beginners every year, but there was so much interest from returning students that she started offering an intermediate section.
Some of the kids from her camp have gone on to the Rounders and others have gone into barrel racing, Perdue said. This year, because of the new format of the camps, Perdue said she will be capping the camp off at 16 people per week. The two weeks offered are June 6 to June 10 and July 11 to July 15.
The fourth camp offered this summer is the police camp. The camp will teach about community involvement, safety and the police department. It will include a tour of the police department and is split into two sections.
The first section is from June 6 to 8 and is for kids ages 8 through 12. This camp will be geared toward familiarization with the police and personal safety topics. The other camp, from July 11 to July 14, is for kids aged 13 to 17. Participants in this camp will get an introduction to a career in law enforcement or a related field.
Both camps are free and run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on their respective days.
General News on 05/18/2016