We did it again!
Last summer six families got together and ran our own week long camp. Check out last years success here.
This year we got bigger and better. We added one more family, added a “camp” for the littles (2-3 year olds), and centered the week around a theme: holidays. Last summers week is now known as the “plain” camp week in my house.
We started the week with Christmas. The host family put up their giant wreath on the side of the house. The kids played several relay races focused around winter or Christmas like each kids had a to balance a marshmallow on a spoon and run across the yard and put it in a bucket. As well as hanging candy canes on a Christmas tree with oven mitts on their hands. The also made Christmas ornaments.
Tuesday was the birthday theme with yard games and a huge inflatable bouncy house water slide!! They had cupcakes that they frosted them selves for snack. And a pinata of course, they had to line up for by their birth date.
I was supposed to host Easter on Wednesday. I planned on being outside the whole morning. The weather forecast predicted 100% chance of rain. And it poured all day. Luckily the Halloween mom stepped up and hosted inside!! I was/am very thankful to not have 15 kids in my house while it poured outside. Halloween was a success! Games like eating doughnuts hanging from a sting without using your hands. As well as pumpkin crafts, costumes, and candy.
Thursday was the Fourth of July. Patriotic paintings were made, obstacle courses were challenged (with life sized croquet wickets made out of pool noodles), and a full kick ball game that the boys wanted to never end.
Then Friday was Easter. We started with a quick walk through the woods to a large field to have an Easter Egg hunt. I was nervous about how to present the hunt to make it fair for the fast 7 year old boys and for the more careful younger girls. So I split the 15 into 3 groups of mixed gender and age. Each group were assigned 2 different colors of eggs to find. Then a walk back to read books and do crafts. My favorite craft was the egg shell heads. The kids drew on empty egg shells and a cut toilet paper roll. They filled the egg with dirt and planted grass seed hair.
Here is the basic layout of how the camp works. Each day one mom would host and two other mothers would help out for the “big” kids camp age ranging from 4-8. Another mom took the five “littles” -the 2-3 year old younger sisters and brothers and hosted them at her house. The drop off and pick up was a little tricky, but we figured it out. Most of us have a mini van with a variety of car seats which helped a lot. That left three moms with the morning off. Here is a sample schedule of the week. Plug in 7 moms and families and you can have camp week too.
We ended a the week with a pizza party lunch on Friday with 20 kids + 7 moms! We congratulated one another and started planning for next year.