Finding creativity in winter camp

Eyes glazed over when 20-year-old Veronica Rhoades poured the brightly colored sand onto the paper plates. She stood behind the table in front of the kids, telling them to sit down, stop talking and pay attention, but her instructions proved futile while the vibrant yellow, orange, purple and black sands were within the children’s reach.

Before the last grain of sand settled, 14 kids between 6 and 8 years old circled Rhoades’ table, their little heads peering at the piles of brilliant sand they would soon get to play with.

This is one of the best parts of the day for supervisors at Newport Beach’s Community Youth Center Winter Camp, Rhoades coworkers said.

Rhoades and four other staff members showed the kids how to make colorful artwork with nothing more than paper, glue sticks and colorful sand. One child wrote their name, another made a fire out of the tiny yellow, orange and red particles.

The camp is “about having fun and interacting with other kids. We pretty much keep them out of trouble,” said 18-year-old Lindsey Starn, an OCC student and supervisor at the camp. “We get to hang out with people our own age and the kids are awesome.”

Last week and this week, Newport Beach’s Department of Parks and Recreation is giving parents a supervised environment for their kids from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.

The children’s days are scheduled around games, physical fitness and crafts.

“We get to make our own creations and it’s fun,” said 7-year-old Claire Hynes. “There are no other camps I really like. I like right here.”

It wasn’t even 11 a.m. and the kids had already played musical chairs, worked through more than half an hour of exercise and created sand art.

Tu Phan, who recently graduated with a degree in recreation administration, led the kids through exercises earlier in the morning with Rhoades.

Because winter break is about fun, even the exercise is turned into a game.

Kids go through an obstacle course of exercises in which they do 10 jumping jacks, 10 sit-ups, run in place for 10 seconds and perform 10 leg stretches depending on where they are in the course.

Back in the sand art studio, 7-year-old Quinn Kelly wasn’t making much progress on his project. Instead of layering the sand in his vial and then pouring it over his paper, he stood off to the side, happily shaking the container and mixing all the colors.

“I like shaking it. It’s really fun, I don’t know why,” he said.

For the counselors, it didn’t matter if he made anything. As long as he had fun, their job was done.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.