Returning for its 31st summer, Fieldston Outdoors is a six-week, coed day camp for children entering kindergarten through those entering 7th grade in fall 2011. The program offers a full range of activities, including art, physical education, swimming, dance/movement, nature study, gardening, and music. Fieldston Outdoors offers a special focus on the environment, nature, and the Hudson River, about which campers learn through songs, stories, folklore, and crafts presented by staff specialists and visiting artists. Our older campers, 5th and 6th graders, develop their own program call SPP (Special Projects Program). These are week-long intensive experiences in such activities as cooking, skills in a particular sport, orienteering, bird habitat study, writing the camp newspaper and more. Trips are an important feature of the camp, where children engage in activities that relate to the Hudson River and its history. Activities include hiking along the Palisades or Hudson Highlands, canoeing the Piermont marshes, and sailing on the Clearwater sloop. Campers in first grade and above take overnight trips geared to their level. Besides regularly scheduled classes, children engage in activities of their own choosing on specified afternoons. A typical “choice” session might offer cooking, tie-dye, friendship bracelets, water experiments, origami, sketching, rock jewelry, insect hunting, basketball, kickball and soccer. Transportation is available to those living in Manhattan and Riverdale for an additional cost through Terry’s Transportation.

Program Director

David Smelin -David has been the program director since 1992. Previously, he spent eight years as director of Hampton Day School Summer Camp in Bridgehampton, New York. David has been a teacher for 36 years. He spent 10 years at Brooklyn Friends School, teaching combined 2nd/3rd grade classes and then 4th/5th grade classes. He came to Fieldston Lower in 1985 and has been a 4th grade teacher ever since.

Staff

Fieldston Outdoors is committed to maintaining a low child-teacher ratio so that every camper’s experience is full, varied, and comfortable. Each group of children is supervised by an experienced teacher, who is assisted by additional counselors. Many of our staff members are teachers from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, as well as from public and independent schools throughout the metropolitan area. A full-time nurse is also on campus during the camp’s operational hours. Specialists in art, dance, and music and visiting professional musicians and artists round out the team.