How to Do Your Own Day Camp

Last year, I blogged about the Camp Mom experience that my son and a few friends enjoyed, cobbled together with various degrees of creativity and desperation by myself and two other mothers. This year, my son has a summer job five mornings a week, so our Camp Mom may not get a second season -- but in case you're trying to plan something fun and sorta organized for your kids, here's my formula for a successful or at least a do-able program.

Start with the place: Preferably, the same house every day. That will give your program the kind of consistency kids get from going to a camp. You'll need a house with a yard, a kitchen table big enough for the group, and an owner who's willing to get things get a little messy. Okay, a lot messy.

Next, gather your materials: We asked our kids' teacher to suggest some activities, and she sent a couple of massive bags of worksheets and blank journals and foam shapes and markers and construction paper and basically, I suspect, everything she needed to clean out of her classroom at the end of the year. We augmented that with what we could find for cheap at the craft store, supermarket, and our own pantries and clutter piles.

Finally, do a little research: Brainstorm places around your area where you can go for weekly field trips or daily excursions. Sketch out a general schedule for the months you'll be day-camping. Kids like to have things to look forward to, and it makes you feel more organized if you know you're not just winging it every day.

Now, work the following elements into each day and week.

Crafts: Just like regular day camp, crafts should be a regular part of each day's activities. About.com's Family Crafts site is a good source of ideas for fun to-do's, as is the Play-Activities site. I've also gathered lots of links to easy projects (like the Crayon Cookies pictured) on my Fun Things to Do index. Warning: Papier-mache is a risky proposition if you have kids with sensory issues.

Learning: Between the worksheets the teacher gave us and the summer homework the kids all had, we managed to carve out a learning period in every camp day. It wasn't the most popular activity, but having other children to do it with made the homework more palatable, I think. We also periodically read books together; played games with a learning angle; did some messy science experiments; and ended the day with some quick journal writing.

Free play: This was a dangerous activity for the health of my house, but the kids loved getting to run around, indoors and out. We tried to take them to nearby playgrounds on a regular basis, and also took a walk around our neighborhood most days. On rainy days, the kids enjoyed following each other around with a video camera, documenting all their jumping and screaming and racing and chasing and screaming and hiding and skipping and did I mention screaming?

Food: We purposely included lunch in our camp day, so the kids could work on eating skills and table manners and such. Most days, campers brought their own food, but to add a little fun to the week, we made Fridays Pizza Day. Each week, we tried a different mode of pizza-ness -- bagel pizzas, English muffin pizzas, French bread pizzas, pizzas on pitas and biscuits and store-bought crusts. The kids customized their creations with just the toppings they wanted. At the end of the summer, we voted on a favorite and had that for the last day.

Outings: Once a week, we went to a free movie at a local theater; chances are your local chain also has a free (or cheap) morning showing of second-run kid-flicks for camp groups and whoever wants to tag along. Also once a week, we had a field trip that took all or most of the day. It ranged from an excursion to a nearby environmental center to a long trek to a Crayola Museum the campers remembered fondly from school field trips. And we did a weekly "bowling league" with just our campers at a friendly neighborhood bowling alley, complete with trophies at the end.

Some days were more organized than others, and some were almost completely improvised. Sometimes we scheduled the kids to within an inch of their lives, and sometimes we let them run amok. But these elements were the routine running through, and while it sometimes seemed like the kids weren't that into it, they were all asking about doing it again this summer. We must have been doing something right.

This post is my submission for this month's All About Parenting Blog Carnival. Stop by and see all the other good day-camp ideas my fellow bloggers submitted.

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}