Each summer, the College of Education and Health Professions hosts a variety of camps for local children and teens that provide memorable experiences, help campers build new skills and help them make new friends.

These camps cover a wide range of the college's majors and give students opportunities to grow their skill sets and gain hands-on experience in their programs and fields of study.

Summer Camp at the Speech and Hearing Clinic

Throughout the summer, the Department of Communication Disorders and Occupational Therapy's Speech and Hearing Clinic hosted an Olympic-themed summer camp three days a week. 

Faculty leader Stephanie Hicks and a team of undergraduate and graduate communication sciences and disorders students used an interactive blend of engaging speech, language and literacy activities to teach campers all about this year's Olympic Games in Paris. 

Campers even had the opportunity to meet and learn from Olympic gold medalists on campus. Razorback gymnastics head coach Jordyn Wieber and assistant coach Kyla Ross met with camp attendees to help them learn what it takes to train for the Olympic Games. 

Graduate communication sciences and disorders student Bailey Standridge assisted Hicks throughout the camp and said it was a great way to gain experience.

"Helping with the Speech and Hearing Clinic camp allowed me to see a variety of clients with varying goals, which allowed me to hone my clinical skill set to work with a population of clients I haven't had much experience with," Standridge said. "This experience allowed me to learn through my clinical sessions while having tons of fun with my clients. "

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Camp

The Augmentative and Alternative Communication Lab (AAC) launched a new free camp experience this summer for children who are AAC users or candidates.

Throughout the three-week camp, children were paired with non-AAC user peers for a STEM-themed experience. In the camp's final week, attendees took a field trip to the Physics Department in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences for interactive experiments with professor Daniel Kennefick.

AAC Lab co-directors Elizabeth Lorah and Christine Holyfield led the camp with a team of graduate and undergraduate students from the college's teacher education, communication disorders and occupational therapy programs. 

AAC devices allow someone with limited speech to communicate by selecting photos or words on a tablet, which can improve interactions with family, friends and others.

Hayley Hames enrolled her 8-year-old son in the camp and said in an interview with Ozarks at Large that the camp has given her son the summer experience he deserves.

"He needs a little bit of extra support that a lot of camps can't really provide, and so having this for him allows him to have the normal day camp experience just like his sister does," she said.

AAC camp was made possible with the help of the College of Education and Health Professions' WE CARE funding.

Literacy Camp

The College of Education and Health Professions' Clinic for Literacy hosted its annual Literacy Camp on the U of A campus July 8-19. 

Kristi Mascher, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, leads the camp each year, along with a team of Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) candidates.

For this year's camp, 18 MAT candidates and 18 children who have completed grades K-5 were paired to work on reading intervention, non-fiction comprehension lessons and museum-inspired animal research.

Each student developed a final non-fiction text or poster project based on the research they conducted throughout the camp experience.

To learn more about the Clinic for Literacy, visit their website.

Middle Grades Storytelling Camp

Mascher and the Clinic for Literacy developed a new summer camp experience for students entering grades 5-8 called Middle Grades Storytelling Camp.

Graduate student Robert Lalonde co-constructed the camp alongside Mascher. The Clinic for Literacy partnered with the U of A Museum, so students could have access to museum collections for research and writing inspiration.

Guided visual storytelling lessons helped campers learn about the creative processes of cartoonists and comic book artists. The campers then applied those concepts to their own original stories and projects. 

At the end of the camp, students produced an original comic book centered around an item from the museum that they researched and characterized in an original work.

Young Writer's Camp

This year, the Young Writer's Camp returned to several locations throughout Northwest Arkansas, including Peabody Hall at the U of A.

Northwest Arkansas teachers help teach the camp each year, which has programming for students enrolled in second through 11th grades. Campers worked on both creative and academic writing and had the opportunity to meet with UAPD K-9 handlers and Razorback student-athletes.

The Northwest Arkansas Writing Project, a professional organization focused on improving writing in area schools, has sponsored camps for young writers for over 20 years. 

As one of about 200 National Writing Project sites, it provides professional development for educators and directly reaches young writers through summer camps and other activities.