This year employees of the Newton County Recreation Commission decided to offer a week long Christmas Camp for the boys and girls out of school for winter holidays.

Children will make crafts, play games and learn a little about nature this week at the Turner Lake Recreation Complex.

"We really enforce imagination and nature," said Debra Banks, recreation commission program coordinator. "Those are two things our camps will always focus on."

Every morning the students start with a brief fitness activity.

Monday, representatives of the Georgia Fire Commission met with participants to discuss home fire prevention.

"It's is that time of year when it gets cold and people use candles and build fires," Banks said, "so we thought it was appropriate."

Tuesday, children made bird feeders out of pine cones slathered in peanut butter and rolled in bird seed.

"We'll hang them here in the park so our feathered friends can have Christmas trees too," Banks said.

Children will create a number of crafts as well, such as constructing Christmas ornaments for parents and writing what they are thankful for on slips of paper to decorate the complex's blessing tree.

Of course, the children will play basketball and Wiffle Ball as well as illustrate with side walk chalk and chase each other in games of duck-duck-goose and other playground pastimes.

"We found that kids - the more they grow and change, the more they stay the same," Banks said.

The Newton County Recreation Commission also offers week-long camps during the public schools' fall break, mid-winter break, spring break and an eight-week day camp in the summer.

The camps are $65 a week.

For more information about children's camps, call the Newton County Recreation Commission at (770) 786-4373.