Summer Fun at Mustang Summer Camp

With hot summer days upon us, the kids of Mustang Summer Camp are beating the Arkansas heat with water play days, snowcones and ice cream celebrations — but that’s not all these busy campers have been up to this June. From exploring the rainforest to traveling the USA, Mustang Summer campers have been embarking on new adventures through different units each week at both the Pleasant Valley and North Little Rock Elementary campuses.

Camp director Gay Passafiume began Mustang Summer Camp three years ago at CAC with the goal of giving students whose parents work through the summer the same opportunity for active and outdoor summer excitement.

 “We’ve been going on field trips and letting them play in the water and just doing fun activities with them because this is their summer — so this is their time to have fun,” Passafiume said.

And summer fun is exactly what they get. One highlight for campers is the weekly Thursday fieldtrip. So far, they’ve visited the Little Rock Zoo, Millennium Bowl and the Museum of Discovery, with trips to the movie theater and Playtime Pizza to come. But with a variety of class options ranging from themes like Lego-Mania to Mythbusters, each day on campus is equally as much of an adventure.

This week, girls in Jennifer Piccino’s Happy Birthday Girls! class celebrated each day with a different Birthday party, beginning with a Frozen party on Monday and ending with a sleepover party today. Amidst the fun of creating, making and celebrating all things involved with a girl’s birthday party, Piccino’s students learned important lessons about proper party etiquette.

“They’re learning about how you would act at a Birthday party as far as manners, they’re learning how to write thank you notes, they’re learning about how to actually create their own invitation,” Piccinosaid. “But most important are the manners that they learn as far as saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and how to treat your friends and how to treat the hostess as well.”

Mustang Summer Camp will continue through July 25 with different class offerings each week. The camp is open to CAC students in grades pre-K 4 through six and parents can register their students at any point during the summer. Drop-ins are welcome and schedules are flexible to accommodate individual families’ needs. For more information, contact Gay Passafiume.