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Outreach Program Aims to Reduce Summer Learning Loss

Posted on June 15, 2015

Johnstown, PA (June 15, 2015) – Friday, June 19 celebrates Summer Learning Day, an annual national advocacy day led by the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) to elevate the importance of keeping kids learning, safe and healthy every summer. Unfortunately for many low-income youth in our region the summer will be spent without access to quality learning opportunities, putting them at risk for falling behind – year after year – in core subjects like math and reading.

In order to help reduce summer learning loss in Johnstown’s most impoverished neighborhoods, The Learning Lamp’s Outreach Program offers six weeks of FREE summer camps beginning June 15 and continuing through August 6. Summer camps are offered for students in grades K-8 in the Moxham, Prospect and Oakhurst neighborhoods and are filled with fun activities and field trips centered around two themes, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” and “STEM.” Outreach summer camps are made possible through generous grants from AT&T, Lockheed Martin Foundation and the Jacob Fend Foundation.

  • Camps in Moxham will take place June 15-25 at the Park Avenue United Methodist Church
  • Oakhurst camps take place July 6-16 at the Oakhurst Community Center
  • Camps in Prospect will be held July 27-August 6 at the Prospect Community Center.

All camps run Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kids are welcome to attend any camp without prior registrations, but parents must sign a consent form.

“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” is the theme of the first week of summer camp. Activities include kitchen safety, cooking tools–what they are used for and how to use them—and how to follow a recipe, which reinforces math sequencing skills. Campers will also read the three-book series of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and create something in the kitchen related to the book. Campers will show off their creative sides by writing an essay about Chewandswallow, the seemingly unordinary town that serves as the setting for the book, describing what it looks like and then drawing it.

STEM is the central theme of the second week of camp activities, as campers focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They will design and build their own “beaks,” then use them to pick up as many items as possible; construct a boat that can withstand heavy weights without sinking; and assemble a crate made from popsicle sticks that both stays afloat and keeps its contents dry. Campers will test their engineering skills as they send a marble along a race track built of toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, wrapping paper tubes, popsicle sticks and tape!

At the end of the two-week series of summer camps, participants will visit Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. The science center is dedicated to education, entertaining and inspiring youth through programs in science and sports and technology. The summer learning opportunities are especially critical for children who are at increased risk of school failure.

Research shows that when children enter kindergarten, a middle-income child already has a six-month lead over a child from a lower-income household because of a lack of access to early reading materials and a quality preschool education. Regardless of the high quality learning that occurs September to June, the gap widens over the summer.

For details on The Learning Lamp’s free summer camp programs, contact 814.262.0732.

The Learning Lamp is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage all children in the support they need to succeed. We deliver high quality programs that are affordable and accessible to families of all income levels. The Learning Lamp served 19,748 children from 88 school districts and 46 non-public and private schools and other organizations in 18 Pennsylvania counties and two counties in Maryland in 2014.

Our programs include: one-to-one tutoring; before/after school programs; portable classrooms aimed at building math and science skills; alternative education programs for at-risk students; evidence-based prevention programs; online learning and credit recovery; SAT preparation; educationally-focused child care; literacy-based preschool programs; and grant writing and project consulting for schools.

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