I don’t have cash to blow on summer camps, but I’m pretty crafty so I’ve made my own. The boys are doing 2 paid camps – the summer holidays are 3 actual months long, after all – but the rest is all me, baby. I have had a few people interested in my schedule, so I thought I would share it for the benefit of all and sundry.

Gardening Camp
Last year was the inaugural Gardening Camp and it was a success. This year I am stepping it up to two weeks, and have secured the services of a “guest lecturer”,  as Husband coined the phrase. Our neighbour is a master gardener, and I have an appointment during the week so he has agreed to babysit. He will be pretty excited when he finds out it is Gardening Camp at our house. He has been working on his garden for 30 plus years and was in the local garden tour, so I feel sure he can add some gravitas to our camp.
Aside from a guest lecturer, we will of course be weeding and seeding, but also making transplant starts of hydrangeas and roses; a fairy garden; using the lawn mowers, and probably riding around in the ride-on mower trailer, to keep the merriment rolling along; composting; working on the hillside path, and perhaps some landscaping blocks around the joint.

Survival Camp
With all the earthquake activity along the Pacific Rim/Ring of Fire, I am doubly glad I had this idea.
Archery; making fire from scratch; foraging edible plants; camping; making emergency backpacks for the kids (we already have 2 big ones); making a solar oven and cooking with it; diy cheese; basic first aid. Conveniently, there is a Ham radio convention in our local area at the beginning of our scheduled camp week, and I have a book which teaches the basics. I shall try and include fishing, as well.

Technology Camp
After watching Honey I shrunk The Kids, the boys were gung-ho for all things technological and unrealistic, so this camp follows a week of paid camp all about inventing things.
We will ride the bus around town – which we never do except at the airport in Dallas; spend time watching planes take off at the local airports; check out the local kids museum which has a lot of electrical kids toys and gadgets; the aviation museum; rebatterise all of the remote control toys laying around, and finish off the week at the local park where Big Hero 6 is showing in the evening.

Sporting Camp
This isn’t really a camp. We will be riding bikes almost every night the whole summer, and doing bmx 3-5 days per week some weeks, but the boys are also doing a kids obstacle challenge out of town towards the end of summer, so we will probably head out that way and camp for a few days beforehand. There is a lot of hiking and biking trails around, and 6yo tried kayaking for the first time yesterday and apparently mastered it pretty quickly, so he and his bros will be keen to do more.

Calming Camp
This is also, not really a camp, but we need a few days off after we come back from our trip away, and doing some calming activites will help us with the time zone transition, I think.
I will be getting a copy of “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” and hopefully we can knock a bunch of them out ourselves; yoga; swimming; writing letters to family and friends, and members of the community; writing a letter to Santa to redirect his gifts for them to children in need; kid’s art studio visits.

After all that, there will still be 2 weeks of holidays left. Add in some sleepovers, and we will all be ready for school to go back!
Enjoy