Summer Camp

When I was a child I didn't go away to summer camp and I have a vague recollection of attending a night or two of bible school and absolutely hating it. I did however go to a couple basketball camps when I got older but that was basketball.

I had heard several moms earlier this year talk about their kids doing this camp and that camp too. The church we attend holds a vacation bible school but children have to be in Kindergarten, so that was out for us. Actually, I didn't plan to do a camp at all, I figured it's summer so my five year old will play outside all day, play with neighborhood kids, finish out his baseball season, and play a couple soccer games.

After the short baseball and soccer seasons we were spending a lot of time just hanging out at our house and outside. I say we as in my five year-old, the new baby, mommy, and sometimes daddy. The neighborhood kids that I thought would be outside playing and all of the kids getting together didn't happen. So I started to look into a small day camp because with the new baby I couldn't always be the playmate and he needed to be with kids his own age.

I started to look in August and because that is considered pretty late in the summer for camp, I missed a lot of them and the camps I found were late in the evenings. Late evenings aren't good for our family, we are winding down not up. Plus bedtime around here is about 8 p.m. because when kids are up by 6:30 a.m. it makes for a long day if they stay up late.

As we were driving to an appointment one morning I saw a sign for an arts and drama camp, and after looking into it a little further, I signed our son up. Today was the second day and he is having a great time. They have the kids separated by age (5 & 6 years of age together) and then into four rotating classes of art, drama, voice, and instruments/music. They also provide the kids with a morning snack and lunch; their day runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Although our little guy doesn't share any specific information I have received a high level overview of what he's doing in each class and he's having fun so I'm happy. The instructors/volunteers have put a lot of thought into the extra kid-friendly things, like making a ham and turkey kabob with flower cheese cut-outs and bread pieces in shapes. They hold a program at the end of the week for family and friends to showcase what the kids did all week. I'm looking forward to the program and our son is looking forward to tomorrow.