We've had a wonderful first day at camp. The kids are amazing and super bright. It's awesome to see kids who are so interested in learning about the world and money.
We started the day with some introductions and the kids were surprised to learn that some of the kids had travelled from Oakville and Mississauga to attend this camp!
Our first activity was understanding the baseline story of Mira & Teyus (the main characters in ExplorerHop.com ). We read how the story started and then the story on India, where the campers met the third character, Hari.
This was followed by our Mission. (ExplorerHop.com is all about Missions! We are user driven content, which means we go where the kids tell us to go! Normally, we have about 3 days to write, edit, illustrate and publish a story.) The kids were asked their suggestions on how the story should unfold. You can see their comments here.
Campers also told us if they could go anywhere on their bikes where they would go.
Here's a sample of them:
From Nikita, " I would go to Hawaii and easy shaved ice".
From Zeina, "I would go to California and Hollywood so I can meet all the celebrities".
We took a break for snack - please remember parents, No Nuts or Sesame in the snacks and lunches!
It was then time to turn the camp over to our awesome Sports Director, Mr. Amr. He taught the kids how to play a whole bunch of games. We started with traditional Indian games called India, these included Kabbadi and Dabba Tor, and then Amr showed them several games they had not played before. 
After games, we headed back to the serious stuff and learnt about the importance on Saving. We learnt the 5 golden rules of Saving and discussed how to stop wastage. We also learnt about the "Money Tree". You can read our story here.
Kids then completed the mission on how to save. It was really interesting to see what their saving goals are. Here is a sample of them:
From Ryder, " I want to save for education + for kids and my life".
From Kaylon, "I will look for new things that are only on sale to save money".
From Bassel, "Don't throw away edible stuff".
After lunch, we got right back into the India theme. This time we focused on crafts that kids in India do.
Campers learnt how to make stamps with cut okra and potatoes. The results were fabulous.
We then handed over the floor to our very amazing dance instructor Kayla who had the kids jamming to Bollywood numbers. Check out these moves!
After a short snack break, we got straight into our Stock Market Challenge. The campers learnt about the stock market and how it works. They also learnt how to select a stock to invest in and how to determine their risk tolerance. Campers are now following their stocks for the rest of the week to see how the stock price fluctuates before they decide to invest in it. We have some pretty Savvy Investors here. You can follow their progress on the investment challenge here.
Here is a sample of the investments:
From James: "100% invested in Microsoft".
From Erind: "50% in Nike, 25% in Adidas and 25% in Apple".
We learnt some Hindi words throughout the day. Each camper had one word / phase, I was "Main theek hoo" (I am ok) and Amr was "Namaste".
Finally, we ended the day with more cool games from Amr.
Reminder to parents:
1) We will be going to South America tomorrow and studying about Free Trade Agreements and how to trade individual things. Kids should bring with them a news article focusing on one of these topics tomorrow: South America or Free Trade Agreements. We will be discussing this tomorrow.
2) Campers should bring 3 things that can be traded with others. These things will not be returned please send stuff accordingly.
3) Campers need an old white t-shirt.
4) If you have iPads, chrome books or even laptops at home, send it with them as it is easier to do missions directly on devices.
5) Lunch and Snacks need to be Nut and Sesame free.
Let us know how your child liked the camp by commenting below. And please share our site with your friends on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Email.
Thanks!