Martha O’Bryan Center’s Summer of Learning Segues Students into School

August 21, 2023

This year’s Summer Camp was full of surprises for students of all ages. All of the programming was designed to prepare students for their return to the classroom. In fact, our goal was to have each participating student reinvigorated and ready to learn. There were multiple field trips to colleges and museums, guest speakers, magic shows, fashion shows, hip-hop artists and even CPR lessons!

Martha O’Bryan Center‘s Summer Camps are broken up into grades K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. Below you’ll find photos and updates from each camp.

Thank you to all our camp leaders and everyone else on staff for giving these young ones such a rich experience this summer!!

Learning Without Limits

The K-5 Summer Camp at Explore! Community School was led by our own Mr. Jeff and his team. Many guest speakers came to the camp, including medical staff and students from the Tenn. State University Cardio-Respiratory Program, who taught our students CPR (shown above). Under the theme “Out with the Old, In with the New” students embraced “the new” by designing toys of the future and by designing their own sneakers. They also learned the tried and true values of communicating well with each otheras well as adults, the lost art of writing letters, saying please and thank you and the best ways to answer the phone. They then returned to “the new” by building their own robots!

Moving Under Their Own STEAM

The STEAM Middle School Students at Isaac Litton Middle School were led by Mr. Keith and his team under the theme, “TAG! You’re It…” Eager participants had competitive challenges in spelling, speed reading, building sentences, problem solving, research and trivia to build character in teamwork, sportsmanship, and healthy competition. They were also taught to “Turn Nothing into Something” by seeing the power of ideas that have become reality in society and see the evolution of products, music, and techfrom simple to complex. They were then encouraged to explore new avenuesof creating and write them down before sharing with the class. They finished their camp by planning their own celebration, a “Sneaker Ball” where students dressed up while wearing sneakers, created sneaker art, played games and elected a king and queen.

Rising Scholars

Our 9-12 Rising Scholars College and Careers Readiness Summer Camp was led by our own Ms. Darlene. The camp’s focus was all about transitioning from middle school to high school and what you need to get into college. In addition to multiple college visits (including MTSU and Belmont, among others), participants met entrepreneurs, visited bankers, restaurants and radio and TV stations—including News Channel 5 and Talk of the Town(pictured above). Ms. Darlene says, “We had a packed summer and we saw a lot and were exposed to a lot!”