Athletics | Media | Outdoor Adventure | Performing Arts | Visual Arts | Waterfront | Horse Program
Fernwood Cove offers a wide variety of instructional activities that provide campers an opportunity to experience new challenges and develop new skills in a safe, non-competitive environment. The majority of the activities offered at camp are scheduled by either skill level or age group ensuring campers receive the appropriate level of instruction. Fernwood Cove meets or exceeds safety requirements of the American Camp Association (ACA) in each of its activity areas.
Fernwood Cove’s daily instructional activities are called “focuses.” Each camper participates in six focuses during an activity day, with five activity days per focus week. Campers have the same focus schedule for the duration of each focus week. Fernwood Cove campers travel to and from their activities independently and there are no focus activities scheduled by bunk group. This allows for campers to explore a variety of activities and builds self-responsibility in every camper. Fernwood Cove’s open layout makes it very easy for each camper to get to and from all of her activities.
Fernwood Cove campers complete their activity sign-ups each week by choosing eight activities from which their focus schedule will be decided. There is little variation in the activities that are offered each week, with the exception of the Arts & Crafts activities which are often based on camper interest and instructor specialties. Having a consistent list of activities offered each week gives each camper the ability to sign-up for any activities that she did not receive in previous weeks or has developed an interest in. There are age restrictions in some activities and activities that are required for some campers.
As campers get older they are able to choose activities that they would like to participate in for more than one week. These activities are called “Intensives” and are available to campers in 8th and 9th grades. 8th grade campers are allowed to have one intensive and 9th grade campers are able to have two intensives. Senior (9th grade) campers are the only campers who can take water skiing or wakeboarding as an intensive. Extended (two or three week) programs such as the Horse Program, the Musical Theater performance, Yearbook, Ropes Course and Digital Slide Show are considered as an Intensive, but younger campers are not excluded from participating in these activities.
All Fernwood Cove counselors are hired based on their experience and skills in their respective activity areas. The majority of the counselors at Fernwood Cove are college and university students who have prior experience working with children. Fernwood Cove also hires professional teachers and instructors who often work as lead counselors in their activity areas.