Briarwood Bugle 2025 – Week 7

Check out our latest Briarwood Bugle! You can read it below or see it in glorious color and with photos here.

Briarwood Bugle 2025
Week 7

From Mike and Matt
It was yet another fantastically spectacular week! (Can you believe it? Actually, we can.)

Color War ended amazingly, as always.  A smiling good time was had by all. Congratulations to the Blue Rebels!

We wanted to highlight something about our Color War events because it is at the core of our philosophy.  Our activities are designed so that every camper is involved and gets to shine.  Through a wide variety of events, different campers kick, swim, dance, run, throw, sing, climb, run, carry, and—most importantly—cheer for each other and have fun all over camp.  It’s wonderful, positive, affirming stuff.  And again this summer, our amazing campers and staff showed us what camp is really all about. We’ve got so many awesome things planned for next week (see below as well as page 4 for just a taste).  Can’t wait!

SOME IMPORTANT DATES
• Briarwood’s Birthday Celebration – Monday, August 11
• Drama Club Presents: Dalmation, Jr.! – Tuesday, August 12 at 10:30 am
• All CIT Late Stay Picnic – Wednesday, August 13
• Last Day of Camp – Friday, August 15 – EARLY DISMISSAL AT 2:30 PM

AND THE 2025 COLOR WAR WINNER IS . . . BLUE REBELS!
Blue Captains:
Jess Phillips, Eli Segal and Pam Tanenbaum
Blue Lieutenants:
Sy K. and Zoe N.
Blue Dance Captain:
Sophia Levy

Gold Captains:
Eli Frankel, Lexi Reinert and Mindy Rubinlicht
Gold Lieutenants:
Reese B. and Scott R.
Gold Dance Captain:
Maddie Tyran

BRIARWOOD STORE – We have an online store! Check it out if you’d like to be decked out in the latest and greatest Briarwood gear.

BRIARWOOD COUNSELORS OF THE WEEK:

Senior Staff: Lexi Boss
Junior Staff: Sarah Lynn

Congratulations!

UPPER GIRLS KINDNESS AWARD:

Zoe W. (Owls)

Way to go!

You asked for it, you got it!
Registration for 2026 is live!
Click on the ENROLL NOW button on our website (or HERE to lock in our early pricing!

SOME FRIENDLY BRIARWOOD REMINDERS:
• If you want to reach your camper’s counselor during the camp day, call the office at 215-598-7143 and we will gladly relay your message. Please do not TEXT or CALL your child’s counselor directly during the camp day. Our counselors are busy watching children and we have asked them not to check their phones during the day.
• Early and Late Care is available from 7:30 am—6:00 pm sharp. Please call the office if you will need this service.
• While it never rains at Briarwood, in the event of a passing shower, please send your camper with the appropriate rain gear should the forecast call for rain.
• Everyone should apply sunscreen daily prior to coming to camp.
• We have a lost and found at camp. It gets pretty full this time of year. Campers’ items should be marked or labeled before they come to camp.
• Did you miss a Bugle? You can find all of this summer’s Bugles in the news section of our website.

Even in this spectacularly fantastic and completely amazing last week of camp,
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not send your camper to Briarwood if he/she is not feeling well.

STAFF SPOTLIGHT: This week we feature more of our amazing rookie senior staff members!

SUPERB, SPECTACULAR, SCINTILLATING SWIM STAFF
MARLA BERKOWITZ is excited to be back at Briarwood as staff after taking a long hiatus from her days attending here as a camper! Her favorite thing about Briarwood is the people. During the school year, Marla is a substitute teacher. Her favorite food is anything Italian or Mexican and her favorite movie is Inside Out. The last book she read is Invisible Furies and if she were an animal, she would be a peacock. Most people don’t know that she rock climbs in her spare time!

SARAH FRANEK is another first timer here at Briarwood Day Camp and we are so happy to have her! His favorite things about camp are all of the happy kids and camp spirit! During the offseason, Sarah is an office manager/HR for a software company. She loves to eat nachos and her favorite show is Seinfeld. If she could travel anywhere, she would go to Ireland. If Sarah were an animal, she would be Charli the dog.

Busy Bees Science, Nature and Sensory Exploration by Alexis McNulty
Our little Busy Bees have been super busy this summer during science and sensory! Even though we kicked off our summer with the hottest of days, we were cooled off by winter and ice! We played with ice in a variety of ways and used ice to make delicious ,fresh lemonade in a bag (we even tried doing the same with oranges). DELICIOUS!! Week two we dove into our ocean theme and our Bees absolutely loved transitioning from our fake snow to our ocean sensory bin. In the garden we created mosaic fish. We have learned how a seed grows and all of the things that a seed needs in order to thrive! We planted flowers to decorate our beehive and planted our own pumpkin seeds during Halloween in July week to bring home and plant to see if we can grow our own jack-o’-lanterns! We used recycled old CDs and DVDs to create spooky spider decorations for our families and of course…the highlight of Halloween week is always making our chocolate, covered Oreo spiders! Dino week was super fun, creating fossils with real clay and making our own dirt or sand during cooking. Bunk show week was a rainbow of colors! The Bees worked hard making their rainbow caterpillars and butterflies. They all LOVE using their droppers, funnels, and test tubes to mix colored water during water play. We will be ending our summer making birdfeeders and everyone’s favorite rice crispy treat birds nests!  What fun!

♫ Learn the Briarwood Song! ♫ We sing it at camp!

Gazelles Have Got It Good! by Sophia Levy
The Gazelles, our amazing sixth-grade girls’ bunk, are always on the move and full of energy! From flipping at gymnastics to soaring down the zip line at the rock wall, these girls bring energy and excitement to everything they do! They love playing sports, dominating the gaga pit, and getting creative at arts and crafts — but most of all, they love spending time together. Whether they’re laughing during lunch, making up skits at the drama stage, or cheering each other on during sports, the Gazelles know how to make every moment at camp unforgettable. They had a blast going head to head during Color War week, but we can’t wait to be one big bunk again next week! JC Penelope and I know that we will cherish these last five days of camp, and we can’t wait to be all together again next summer!

Important Dates

•August 11th-Briarwood Birthday Celebration

•August 12th-Tie Dye Tuesday

•August 12th-Drama Show @ 10:30 am

•August 13th-Wednesday Themeday-Briarwood Spirit Day

•August 13th-All CIT Late Stay Picnic (night)

•August 14th-Briarwood Marathon

•August 15th-Last day of camp – early dismissal at 2:30