Quick!! Before I forget…must write down for my own sake the different activities and camps that the boys did this past summer. Looking back on the summer, it seems I signed them up for a great number of things, but in reality it felt like the perfect balance of scheduled/structured, and unscheduled/spur of moment/hang around time. Also, when a kid’s “camp” runs three mornings a week for three hours, there’s still a lot of open time to be had.
Ryan (age 7)
-Played baseball 2x/week in May and June
June:
-Washburn soccer camp (very well-run, had a ton of fun, LOTS of exercise. 2hrs/morning for 4 days, but will def do again)
-Kiddywampus “build a fort” art camp with friend Luke (great camps here, he liked it a lot, spent 3 mornings working on gigantic fort)
July:
-Kiddywampus “construction art camp” (3 mornings, took this with Sam. Both boys had a lot of fun, built marble runs, vehicles, robot.)
-Lego camp @Lynnhurst, Mpls Parks & Rec with friend Ryan H. (4 mornings, Lego play and activities, included outside time.)
-Kiddywampus “Star Wars art camp” (3 mornings, took this with Sam. Star Wars themed activities and art creations. They loved it).
-The Works Engineers’ Camp (4 mornings, took with friends Luke and Liam). Lot’s of fun science activities, brought stuff home, explored museum, some outside time.
August:
Nothing scheduled for either kid. Got dentist appts in, spent five days in Duluth, had annual Guthrie/Mill City outing, went to some pools and parks. School started 8/25!
Sam (age 4)
June:
-Little Learners summer preschool @ Pearl (1 week, 3 mornings). Coincided with Ryan’s soccer camp week.
July:
-Kiddywampus “construction art camp” (with Ryan, see above)
-Kiddywampus “Star Wars art camp) (with Ryan, see above)
-Little Learners summer preschool @ Pearl (2 weeks, 3 mornings, coincided with the weeks Ryan did Lego camp and The Works camp)
August:
Nothing scheduled, see above. Sam didn’t start preschool till 9/9.
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My thoughts… it was nice having a week off between when school was out and when any camp began. July was a long month (5 weeks worth of stuff)- didn’t plan anything for week of 4th of July. Four weeks in a row of different camps and driving kids to different places two of the four weeks got to be a lot of driving, but they really enjoyed each camp they did, so I’d do it similarly in the future. Every afternoon and many Thurs/Fri were open. In August, three full weeks of nothing planned out felt a bit daunting, but it ended up being ok. Boys had a little too much “togetherness” time and were in each others’ hair for most of the month, but I think scheduling more camps would have been overkill. All in all, it was a great summer filled with lots of playtime outdoors with the neighbors, 3-4 trips to Duluth, park visits, pool visits, bike rides, water balloons, hose attacks, etc etc.
(I have no photos of anyone’s “structured” summer activities. This is the closest I got…a pic of the two Ryans riding home from lego camp.)
FatJ 