Resources To Create Your Own Awesome Summer Camp

Photo Credit hevonens

When my sister’s kids were visiting the other day, they shared with much excitement how they are doing Flylady’s Summer Bootcamp. They were enthusiastic as they told me all about it. I wonder if they really knew that it was “cleaning camp?” My sister is very good about making cleaning/chores fun.

Since this visit, I have been thinking about ways to create some fun (learning experiences) with the kids this summer.

My criteria was:

1. They had to be close to home.
2. They had to be cheap or free.
3. They had to fun.

Here are some of the ideas that I came up with for use with my own family:

1. Play through all the games we already own. There are many games we own that we have never played.
2. Dig out the art supplies that are hiding in all corners of the house and let the kids loose. I am sure if we look we can find scads of art materials just waiting to be used.
3. Turn the backyard into a fun adventure for their plastic army men and animals. Our backyard is less than twenty feet square and is overgrown with tall grass and patches of dirt. It would be perfect for armies to fight or animals to go on a safari. I can also picture their little metal cars driving on roads carefully carved in the dirt and paved with pebbles.
4. Take some time and think about local parks that are close by. Plan a weekly or bi-weekly outing as a family, complete with a picnic lunch.
5. Rotate the kids’ bookshelf. It is time to restock the shelves with new stories. I buy new books for school every year and we have too many, so one solution is to fill the bookshelf and put the rest in boxes. Every few months we rotate the books.
6. Play with water. We can play at the water park in our complex, run through the sprinklers in the front yard, or buy a new, inflatable pool for the backyard.
7. Teach the kids some new skills around the house, but make it fun. Our oldest is wanting to learn how to do his own laundry, so that is a good place to start.
8. Collect some easy recipes and plan to bake just for the fun of it. It would be loads of fun to spend some time cooking on a cloudy, rainy summer day. I always have volunteers when I pull out the baking supplies.
9. Gather as a family and make a list of our favorite movies, or movies that we have been wanting to watch, pop some popcorn, and settle in for a rainy day of fun.
10. Sit down and plan a full week of summer camp at home using some of the ideas listed above or listed at the links below.

Here are some other resources for creating an awesome summer experience for your kids:

1. Make Your Own Summer Camp At Home
2. Do It Yourself Summer Camp At Home
3. Summer Camp At Home
4. Carnival Of Homeschooling Summer Camp Edition
5. 8 Weeks To The Perfect Home Scholar

If you still don’t have enough ideas, you can check out my post on creating a summer bucket list which is loaded with links to even more resources.

Have you decided what you are doing this summer?

When Honey is not planning summer activities for her five children, she is blogging at Sunflower Schoolhouse and running Connections Network.