At Home Summer Camp

The past few summers I always feel a bit antsy when the summer time rolls around. Not having access to a car during the day probably made things a little worse and I just wanted to have a little fun. I am sure my kiddos would love some fun, too! As I thought about options available, I started to feel a bit limited on what we could do. In addition to our transportation and budget issues, I still had two young, napping, very slow walking, non-school aged children. Most classes in the area were for older children, out of my price range or if we walked, it would be a very long walk in the middle of the day…yada, yada, yada…you can see my excuse list piling up! lol Then it dawned on me to have our own Summer Camp. For some reason calling it Summer Camp made my 3 year old (at the time) even more excited to particpate.

Mini-Summer Camp Routine:

So to start, I decided we would only do Summer Camp three mornings a week. For us, Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. That allowed us to join in on a local play group, play with friends, or if we had the car, to go to the library the other two mornings. Then I picked a few categories I wanted to work on each of those mornings each week. Art, Baking and Adventure/Science (Adventure and Science rotated every other week). Usually once a week we would invite a friend or two over to join in on an activity. Pretty simple, right?

Do not think that you have to do 3 new amazing things each week. It was more of the anticipated project.

For instance, we did not always do some new recipe each week for our Baking Day. Sometimes it was brownies and we attempted to make them from scratch… or from a box on a rough day . BUT, it was their project. Since they could not read, I was there to read the instructions and ask them what they needed. They got out the bowls, ingredients and needed instruments. I had them do any stirring by hand as much as possible. We tasted, smelled, touched everything we added. And they helped clean up everything, too. Can’t forget about that! They absolutely loved it!

We have built some great memories over the past few summers. In fact, a lot of the activities we show off on here on Fun On a Dime stem from those fun Summer Camp weeks. Here are a few we have posted past summers:

Art Ideas

• Homemade Piggy Banks
• Creating Painted Fireworks
• Homemade Pinata – Always fun for a summer party
• Circle Art – My kids still beg to do this one again!
• Homemade Watercolor Paint
• Magic Wands
• Sand Art with Homemade Colored Sand

Baking Ideas

• Watermelon Jello Bowl
• Root Beer Float Pudding Popsicles – There is a recipe for Fruit Pudding Pops in the same post, too
• Easy Ice Cream Cake – Made from ice cream Sandwiches
• Yummy and Easy Banana Bread
• Root Beer Float Cake – Can you tell we love Root Beer? This recipe rocks!
• Easy Homemade Ice Cream In A Bag
• Mint Brownies - Yum!

Adventures/Science Ideas

• Take a Hike – We planned these for Dad’s day off
• Make a Chia Pet Head at Home
• Ice Breaker Experiment
• Pick-Up Sticks – Active games are an adventure, too!
• Movie Night Adventures – They love to help plan these
• Make a Kite – Easy and homemade – let them run around for hours in the backyard!

Now that my oldest is in school, we were invited to participate in a Summer Camp at his school for $250 for 2 weeks. As fun as that sounded, we passed that opportunity up fast! We like our simple summer fun!

Your Summers are what you make of them. So, have some fun!!!

Linking up to these sites: Tatertots and Jello