ChristusG Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 It's really hot outside, I'm pregnant, and we're doing school all summer. So I want to make a week of camp for my kids to do something fun. DD7 really wants to go to a day camp for a week, but there's not really many around us that I would send her to...so this is the next best thing (though she is attending VBS mid-July). I'm going to do it sometime in July, for one week, and have a different theme each day. I've researched online, but I need some help! I haven't found a lot of ideas that I like. Wednesday and Thursday are especially lacking. And I really would like the activities to be indoors....It's hot and I'm pregnant LOL. Ideas anyone? Has anyone done something similar before? What worked? What didn't? Here's my daily themes: Monday: Christmas In July Have a small, wrapped gift for each kid Decorate sugar cookies Watch a Christmas show (probably either Rudolph or The Grinch) Read the Christmas Story, as well as a few other Christmas books Make a snow globe Christmas music dance party wearing Santa hats Tuesday: Jungle Adventure Tuesday Make sock snakes Create Magical Rocks (collect rocks, wash them, paint them, and put clear coating on them) Make a fort and read a few "adventure" books under it Play "I Hear Something In The Woods" game (kids lie down, close their eyes, I have various objects and make noises with them, kids try to guess). Have a photo scavenger hunt that leads the kids to various places in the house, where they find a treat at the end. Wednesday: Wet-N-Wild Wednesday Take a bubble bath (yes, this is a treat because I always give my kids showers, not baths) Squirt gun artwork (hang paper on the fence, fill small watergun with water and food coloring, stand back and squirt at paper to make design). Have Popsicle for a snack (or let the kids chase the ice cream man). Thursday: Terriffic Thursday Create rhythm sticks (use dowels to paint, then cover with clear varnish, then kids can hit them together to make music). Make paper people (I have templates, we'll create people, clothing, etc....then take to Staples to laminate them). Friday: Field Trip Friday Today will be reserved for several field trips....maybe Chuck E. Cheese, Paint on Pottery, library activities, Jump Zone....maybe 2 or 3 places, depending on the cost and how much time each place takes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belacqua Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 Maybe for Wet Wednesday you can play Sink or Float? Just get a big pot of water and chuck all kinds of stuff in (one at a time), guessing beforehand whether they'll sink or float. Sounds kind of lame, I grant, but we did this at a summer science camp and the kids went nuts for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenpatty Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 I don't have any ideas, but I just wanted to say that it is such a cool idea! My kids would love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 Wednesday - dye eggs - these come out totally wild and are really easy: http://www.parentsconnect.com/do/simply_marble-less.html Thursday - shaker cans (empty can, beans). Paper Chains. Don't know where this fits - but how about painting rocks? Bring in some rocks from outside and paint them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacia Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 On Wednesday, you could send them outside for a bit armed w/ buckets of water & paintbrushes. They can paint whatever they want w/ water (the house, the sidewalk, etc...). For Thursday, you could maybe add things like... Have dessert for breakfast (maybe pancakes or crepes w/ ice cream & chocolate chips) Watch some Tom & Jerry cartoons (or something silly & funny) Play board games for a bit If your kids like Star Wars, have them make light sabers out of old wrapping paper tubes (cover w/ construction paper for the light end, use electrical tape for the handle, foil for buttons/switches), then have light saber fights (if you do this craft, watching a Star Wars movie together would be fun & you could do snacks around that theme) Do you have any science kits/sets you could pull out & use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 Painting with ice on Wed. I usually different sized containers with water and freeze. Then I dump the different sizes of ice and let the kids create on the slate walk. My kids also like drawing with shaving cream (the shaving cream also helps clean the outdoor furniture). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 Maybe something science-y? How about a Spaced Out Thursday? You could Art: Mix up about 6 or 7 colors of tempra--add color to white to make some cool pastelly (that's not a real word) colors --think Jupiter/Venus colors. Then paint on old records (just need one per kid). Have them paint lots of color, layering and mixing and swirling to their hearts' content. THEN take a monoprint on a sheet of good paper. Do a second one if you wish, and then cut them out (you cut unless they are very good at it) and staple together. Hang as planets. Cooking: Make a "layers of the Earth" ball--basically a gumdrop in the center, various things around it. Here. There are other ways to do it--I think we frosted ours and froze it. When it's done, you cut it in half and see the layers. Then you eat it! lol Science: (well, it's all science, but you know what I mean) Moon Surface Put down a pan of damp sand (they can spray it with squirt bottles to help set it up for you), drop marbles in. Notice "craters." You can talk about the surface of the moon being dangerous for the astronauts to land on. You can also do this in plaster of paris on a paper plate (newspaper to catch splashes)--this hardens and gives them a product. Video: Go to YouTube and watch the first man walk on the moon! You can add a fun ocean activity to your Wednesday--We did this in preschool-- You take different colors of plasticine clay (make sure it's pliable enough) and put little pieces inside on the bottom of a 9X12 glass pan. Cover the whole thing. Make sure several pieces get piled up to look like mini mountains. This is the surface of the ocean floor. Tell them about how hilly and trench-y (another not real word...) it is. Then have them pour lightly colored (blue or blue/green) water over it, just enough to cover some of the clay. Some will stick up. Those are islands! I love these kinds of activities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacia Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 (edited) Oh yeah, one thing my ds did w/ a friend when he was younger (and the older siblings were in a camp; the other mom & I made our own camp for the littles) -- they created their own 'camp' t-shirt. We got the type of fabric paint you can spray (think we had a set from Michael's that had red, yellow, blue). We dug through all our stickers & got all sorts of stickers that had good outline shapes (stars, vehicles, various animal shapes, letters, etc....). The kids decorated their plain white t-shirts w/ stickers (my ds still has his shirt, which says "Time for Art" and has various shapes all over). Press down really hard on the stickers to make sure they're really adhered to the shirt. (We put cardboard inside the shirt to give a little bit of a hard surface for pressing.) When that was done, we took the shirts outside, put them on a tarp, and let the kids spray the shirts w/ whatever colors they wanted. Let the shirts stay outside & dry. Peel the stickers off & then wash according to the paint instructions. It gave kind of a pastel/color washed look & they were really cute. Of course, the kids loved them because it was their own camp shirt. Another idea is to get fabric markers & let them decorate their own shirt, book bag, etc.... You could get iron-on paper & print a logo or 'summer camp' wording or something, put the design on the shirt & then let them color it in using fabric markers. Space-themed crafts are always fun too. Get huge sponges to strap (rubber band) to their feet so they can 'moon walk'. Put pudding in a ziploc, then put a straw in it so they can eat astronaut food, make baking soda powered rockets, etc.... (ETA: Chris in VA -- too funny about the space theme; I think we were posting at the same time. LOL.) Edited July 1, 2011 by Stacia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happi duck Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 (edited) It's really hot outside, I'm pregnant, and we're doing school all summer. So I want to make a week of camp for my kids to do something fun. DD7 really wants to go to a day camp for a week, but there's not really many around us that I would send her to...so this is the next best thing (though she is attending VBS mid-July). I'm going to do it sometime in July, for one week, and have a different theme each day. I've researched online, but I need some help! I haven't found a lot of ideas that I like. Wednesday and Thursday are especially lacking. And I really would like the activities to be indoors....It's hot and I'm pregnant LOL. Ideas anyone? Has anyone done something similar before? What worked? What didn't? Here's my daily themes: Monday: Christmas In July Have a small, wrapped gift for each kid Decorate sugar cookies Watch a Christmas show (probably either Rudolph or The Grinch) Read the Christmas Story, as well as a few other Christmas books Make a snow globe Christmas music dance party wearing Santa hats Tuesday: Jungle Adventure Tuesday Make sock snakes Create Magical Rocks (collect rocks, wash them, paint them, and put clear coating on them) Make a fort and read a few "adventure" books under it Play "I Hear Something In The Woods" game (kids lie down, close their eyes, I have various objects and make noises with them, kids try to guess). Have a photo scavenger hunt that leads the kids to various places in the house, where they find a treat at the end. Wednesday: Wet-N-Wild Wednesday Take a bubble bath (yes, this is a treat because I always give my kids showers, not baths) Squirt gun artwork (hang paper on the fence, fill small watergun with water and food coloring, stand back and squirt at paper to make design). Have Popsicle for a snack (or let the kids chase the ice cream man). Thursday: Terriffic Thursday Create rhythm sticks (use dowels to paint, then cover with clear varnish, then kids can hit them together to make music). Make paper people (I have templates, we'll create people, clothing, etc....then take to Staples to laminate them). Friday: Field Trip Friday Today will be reserved for several field trips....maybe Chuck E. Cheese, Paint on Pottery, library activities, Jump Zone....maybe 2 or 3 places, depending on the cost and how much time each place takes. What a fun idea! Some thoughts: I'd move the adventure theme to Thursday and call it Thrilling Thursday and make the other day Terrific Tuesday (yes I'm picky, why do you ask? :tongue_smilie:) For Weds: the mentos and diet soda trick if you've never done it (you don't need to buy this: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/geyser-tubebut but it does work well and makes it easy...I've seen them at Michaels and Hobby Lobby (use diet pop because isn't sticky and though I've heard diet coke works best, we've always used the cheapest pop available and like using different colors, they've all worked great for us) The Janice VanCleave experiment books (for ex: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471310115/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0471525057&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1885CKXD7G5GPS7QM0XH) have a lot of great, easy to do experiments and you'd probably find many to fit the theme, esp. Weds. (libraries should have a lot of her books) Recently someone had a thread about making things to give to others. You could add something like that to the Terrific day. I'll try to link to that thread. For any of the themes you can make a large memory game. It's played the same...turn over two cards looking for a match, if they match you get another turn, if they don't match the cards get flipped back over and it's the other player's turn...the difference is the cards are big and spread out on the floor not the table, I've done this by printing on 8.5x11 cardstock. You can also play with objects to match that are covered with bowls, baskets etc. Have fun! eta: love the camp shirt idea! Edited June 30, 2011 by happi duck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happi duck Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 ideas for others thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283997 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 Do you have a source of refridgerator boxes? We got 4 of those one year, and DD had one friend over for each one. They picked a theme or design, we drew it in pencil on the box, I cut out the cut out parts with an exacto knife (the rule was, either you two are in the other end of the yard where I can see that you are not close by, or if you stand nearby you must be behind me at all times) and then gave them paints and brushes and they decorated it. We ended up with a Thomas Train, a castle, some kind of boat, and something really whimsical. When they were finished they became props for a treasure hunt for her birthday in July, and after that they were played with all summer long. We also did Roxaboxen camp during another summer--have you ever seen that picture book? It's about some kids in Arizona who invented a pretend town. Each got his own plot of land to make into a house, and then they traded stuff and visited and did some glorious pretending. I let each friend of DD's create their own space with whatever materials they could find, and they had a blast. We didn't do this every day for a week. It was more like, on a prespecified day each week they could all come over and play. Some did and some didn't each time. They loved our house because I let them leave their 'homes' set up all summer long, instead of making them clean up. There were a lot of mud rivers and dams as well, as I recall. I was fine with it as long as they didn't torture any living thing (not the cat, not the newts, not the lizards, no you may not use the magnifying glass when I'm not out here with you, why do you ask?) or track mud into the house or jeopardize the tomato plants. I set up 3 inexpensive dish buckets out on the deck, about at chest level for this age from the ground. One had prerinse warm water, the next had warm water with dishwashing detergent in it, and the last had clear water for rinsing. There were also some big, old, raggedy, thirsty towels hanging over the railing. The rule was, to approach the house you must take off your shoes and wash your hands. If you were still dripping mud of one sort or another, you had to stand at the door and call me, and I would wrap you in a towel and carry you through the house to the bathroom. Other than that, I was totally hangloose. I think that facilitating that kind of imaginative play is awesome. The kids wanted to come back and back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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