Storybook, not Snorybook: My greatest songs as a camp-counsellour and why they worked

The best way to increase teamwork? Put people in situations where they feel motivated to work together to achieve a common goal.

How do you oversee and facilitate that teamwork as a leader? It’s simple. Be unequivocally unafraid to be your truest, silliest self.

This is the magic of creating songs, skits, and dances in a camp setting. Children work together toward a common goal, creating something out of nothing and showcasing their talents (or developing their lack of talent). Leaders facilitate that process by prompting them with suggestions and ideas, rediscovering their own sense of youth along the way.

The final, ‘end of week show’ is something that I’ve incorporated into every camp setting I’ve had a hand in creating over the years. It’s the ultimate finale to a week of hard work in the sun (for our leaders), and fun in the sun for our children (and our leaders too, let’s be honest).

It’s also something that I dedicatedly worked to make special for the kids as a leader myself. Here are my favourite three songs I created alongside the kids as a camp counsellour across my time at Storybook Gardens, and the lessons all leaders can learn from how to create effective team cheers and songs to win end of week camp shows across the country.

STORYBOOK, NOT SNORYBOOK

_{2018, WEEK 1: LIZARDS}

One of the things that I love to do in writing team cheers is to say “We’re this, not that.” I like it as a succinct way of developing team identity around the chosen team name or setting, and it usually creates a fun dynamic that I can use between the polarizations. This is exactly what we did when creating ‘Storybook, not snorybook’ around the idea of having fun at our campsite, and not being bored (i.e. sleeping).

Storybook not Snorybook
We never sleep
We play, all day, till the sun goes away

Our counsellour is the bounce-illour on the jumping pillow,
Not a real one, just a fake one,
Cause we never sleep

Rhys: Hey everyone, what was your favourite thing about Storybook?
Campers: Not you, counsellour Rhys!
Rhys: Why not?
Campers: Cause you’re not that fun
Rhys: Aw man!!

Storybook not Snorybook
We never sleep
We play, all day, till the sun goes away

Our counsellour is the bounce-illor on the jumping pillow,
Not a real one, just a fake one,
Cause we never sleep

The beauty of this song lies within a three-step formula that I’ve used to create all of my favourite cheers over the years, almost unintentionally. The formula is this:

1) Who are we? (in this case, where are we?)
2) What do we do?
3) Why are we better than you? (in this case, what makes us unique?)

Our answers:

1) We’re at Storybook, not Snorybook!
2) Why not Snorybook? Because we never sleep. Instead, what do we do? We play all day. What’s our favourite way to play? We bounce on the jumping pillow (our counsellour is even the bounce-illor!!).
3) But not a real pillow, a fake one. Why? Because we never sleep.

You will see this formula even better in the next example, but first it’s worth noting that I love to break up some of my songs with a bridge of sorts – talking to the kids mid-song. “Hey everyone, what’s your favourite thing about Storybook?” They answer without even answering, and then we go back to singing without any kind of resolution. Parents always loved these interludes.

I love this one because it’s so simple, yet so creative at the same time. It plays around with the name of our camp, while establishing a sense of team identity. When creating this kind of song, it’s important to ask the kids prompting questions like: “What do we do?”, and to actually use their answers. Notions like “We play all day” & the utilization of the jumping pillow would have been things they said to me when asked what they like to do at Storybook as we created this song together.

CHEETAH-VICIOUS

_{2017, WEEK 4: CHEETAHS}

This one holds a special place in my heart because it’s written as a parody to one of my all-time favourite songs. Even though our best singers left moments before the show, the kids still pulled it off despite the complications of what we created. When thinking through this song and asking the kids to develop some identity around being ‘cheetahs’ for the week, one of the kids said “they’re vicious.” By the time I woke up the next day, the idea had completely formulated in my head.

Cheetah.

Ferga-

Vicious.

Licious.

Fergalicious

Cheetah-vicious.

We wrote the song together that day, stealing most of the quirks that make Fergie and Will.I.Am’s song so whimsical.

Listen up ya’ll cause this it,
The beat that we’re singing is cheetah-vicious

Cheetah-vicious roar, Cheetah-vicious roar, Cheetah-vicious roar,
Roar, roar, roar, roar, roar, roar,
Cheetahs are the team having the most fun at Storybook
If you want to be like us you can’t be like us, sorry!

We aren’t zebras, we are cheetahs. We aren’t horses, we are cheetahs.
Having fun on the Ferris Wheel, you will never beat us.

We’re cheetah-vicious,
We’re always staying vicious.
Got us up in the Book just reading and having fun,
Hear our roar, ROAR!
We put the zebras on flock, flock
And we’ll be chasing after them with our black polkadots.

We’re cheetah-vicious,
We’re always staying vicious,
Got us up in the Book just jumping on the pillow, jumping pillow, ROAR!
We put them gazelles on flock, flock
And we’ll chasing after them with our black-polkadots.

The song still makes me smile in delight today with lines like ‘If you want to be like us, you can’t be like us, SORRY!’. But it follows the exact same formula described above.

1) We’re cheetahs. We’re NOT horses or zebras. We’re cheetahs, and we’re vicious.
2) What do we do? We read, frolic over to the ferris wheel, jump on the pillow, and most importantly…
3) The other animals simply can’t be like us. We put them on flock, flock, and we chase after them with our defining black polkadots.

It’s worth noting that this was a group of older participants. For young children it’s best not to do something so complicated like this where the lines change between verses (e.g. zebras vs. gazelles; reading and having fun vs. jumping on the pillow). BUT, it worked really well with the group I had, and we practiced it at every opportunity so that we’d absolutely steal the show on the day.

RHYS’S PIECES PEANUT BUTTER CUPS

_{2017, WEEK 8: RHYS’S PIECES}

This song was the definition of team collaboration. I’m pretty sure one of the kids stole the initial idea from an actual song just like I did with Fergalicious, but the lines in between were fun and easy to follow, leading into a fast-paced hook at the chorus.

We don’t like candy,
We don’t like rockets,
So keep them in your pocket,
We only like Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces!

We don’t like liquorice,
It makes our tongue fell ticklish,
We don’t like gummy bears,
So we tell them not to make it here!
We only like Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces!

Rhys: You guys know what I like?
Campers: What?
Rhys: Peanut M&M’s
Campers: (gasp) How dare you betray your own snack?
Rhys: Oh, sorry! What do you like?
Campers: Rhys’s Pieces…

Peanut Butter Cups! Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups! RHYS’S PIECES!

Favourite song. Maybe biased. It is about me (and our joint love for candy). But this one has so many positive memories attached to it. First of all, we wrote every single line of the song and developed the accompanying actions together. The actions we created perfectly fit the vibe of the song – from dabbing after the proclamation of ‘Rhys’s Pieces!’, to the constant fists in the air at the chorus.

It doesn’t follow the exact same prescribed formula, but it does play a nice game of ‘THIS. NOT THAT.’ We play into that game throughout the song.

We ONLY like Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups. We don’t like other candies. Those other candies simply aren’t allowed. We want a total monopoly of Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups.

We even break up the song at one point so that I can tell them what I like. They’re disgusted at the thought and we go back into song together. After performing, they dunked me with water as my prize for creating great songs all summer, and because I had to leave early to become a Residence Life Don.

This one lives on. Some of the other songs I created can easily be forgotten. In fact, I don’t remember 99% of them. This one stood the test of time. I guarantee it, some of the kids remember performing this song too. If you can create environments and experiences that children look back on years later, you’ve done something right. That is what is so powerful about an end of week show. It’s a memorable way to end the week. It’s a memorable way to get all the children and leaders to be their truest, silliest selves, and come together to create something magical.

We’ll definitely be incorporating the end of week show into our summer camp this year at ‘The Blue’, and I can’t wait to show the new batch of leaders the video of ‘Rhys’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cups’ to show them the standard they’ll be aspiring to reach.

Thanks for reading and see you soon!