Tamwood Camps LA

I have been researching for years of how to get to America and live there as that is my biggest dream. I found an opportunity to work in America for two months at a summer camp. I decided to join Americamp to be able to be a general counsellor and gain new skills. At this point I had no idea where I would be based. I decided to do some of my own research on camps and that is when I found Tamwood camps.

Tamwood have camps in many different locations such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montreal, Whistler, Boston and more. This camp was appealing to me as it was an English learning camp, international students would attend to learn English and experience American culture. The students came from Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Russia and France. It was challenging at times as it was hard to communicate English to the children. I found it inspiring and rewarding when the children would talk to each other in English and had made good friendships with children from all around the world.

Our accommodation for the duration of camp was at the University of California Los Angeles – UCLA. This is one of the top three public universities of the USA. The campus is beautiful, many movies and TV shows were filmed at UCLA including Legally Blonde, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Pie and more. It was nice to live on campus as I got the American college experience by making college friends and watching the college games (soccer, tennis, American football). Whilst I was there Manchester United, and Barcelona FC came to UCLA to use their football pitch for training during the summer. The campus was close to everything in LA, we were based in Westwood next to Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Century City.

We looked after children aged between 7-17, I was able to work with all ages. We had to keep them entertained by playing lots of activities and supervising them on excursions. The timetable consisted of going on three excursions each week, there was a themed disco night every Saturday night and a range of activities.

Here is a list of activities we did on campus:

1. Swimming

2. Camp games: Team building games, bob the weasel, arts and crafts

3. Sports: Rounders, Football, Basketball, Volleyball, Dance

4. Themed discos

5. Talent shows

6. Carnival Nights

Here is a list of excursions we went on:

1. LA Dodgers Game

2. Six Flags

3. Disneyland

4. Universal Studios