“MOM! What can I do?? I’m so bored!!!!!!” hits about midsummer around here. Despite the numerous water parks, movies and excursions about 6 weeks into summer, the kids want to shake it up a bit.
This year, a few moms and I planned ahead to trump this “bored” state of being by creating our own neighborhood Summer Day Camp.
And so do we! That’s why we decided to take on summer day camp. The best part is, camp doesn’t have to cost a fortune this way!
How To Plan Your Own Summer Day Camp:
It’s so simple, I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before.
I got together with three other parents and we each decided to take a day. We also planned a fun event all together on Friday. Since our kids are ages 8-12 and both boys and girls, we had to ensure our activities would interest all kids involved. We developed a loose schedule, each picked out a theme for our days (so there would be no duplicates) and went home to plan what our day would look like.
Each day one house hosted “camp” from 9 -12 and the only rule we gave ourselves is that we needed to provide structured activities for the kids during that time (no tv!!).
The house that had a pool utilized her summer day camp time with fun swimming activities. The mom who loves to scrapbook had the kids making forts out of paper towel rolls and newspaper while they baked homemade bread. One mom had all the kids bring their bikes and took the kids out Geocaching all morning! And another mom did a Dance off using the Wii!
On Friday, we took all the kids on a field trip to a living history farm and had a picnic lunch.
Some other great ideas for Summer Day Camp could include:
- Neighborhood Photo Scavenger Hunt
- Act out your own skit or make a movie
- Lego creations
- Traditional Camp Crafts: God’s Eye, friendship bracelets, clothespin people
- Sprinkler Fun
- Board Games
- Have a Theme for each day (countries, colors, sports, etc.)
The idea of a Neighborhood Summer Day Camp can be used for all ages. You can even jazz it up a bit with custom t-shirts or hats!
There are so many great benefits to working with your neighbors and putting on a Day Camp. Kids get out of the house and try something new each day. They get to spend oodles of time with their friends. And moms get some free time too! We all enjoyed it so much that we are putting another one together before the end of the summer!
Check out these other ideas for putting on your own Summer Day Camp:
That’s so great that they have so many kids to play with and such fun mommas who will help!
Mari
Great ideas!
Awesome! So many fun ideas. You are lucky to have so many energetic moms who will take that on. I’ve been doing Camp Mom once a week with friends this summer and it has also been a lot of fun… but a lot of work! Especially with toddlers and preschoolers. I will need to remember this idea for when my kids are older.