Follow these step by step instructions for creating a summer day camp- homeschool style.
Get Other Families Involved
Pick four favorite families for a grand total of five families involved in your day camp. Five families= five weekdays. It's an important connection that allows you to get 3 or 4 "days off."
Have a Planning Meeting
Start the Planning with a Meeting. Group decisions can be tricky, so the goal of this meeting is really just to chat over coffee and declare that each family must be wholly responsible for one day. Your schedule might look like this;
Monday- Jones Family
Tuesday- Kennedy Family
Wednesday- Adams family
Thursday- Simmons Family
Friday- Osborne Family
Planning Activities
The planning of activities should be kept as simple as possible. The best way to do that is to have each family do their planning independently of each other. So what if activities are repeated over the week? There can be no agenda in the name of summer fun. You'd have to change the name to Summer School if you wanted to plan something like that.
Gathering Supplies
Each family is also responsible for the gathering of supplies for their designated day. See how easy this is? Even for food. If you plan to serve pizza on your day then you pay the delivery boy. Similarly, if Mrs Jones (she always pulls stunts like this) wants to have the kids hand-toss their pizza she can pay to have the pizzeria send a chef to teach the kids how to do it. Who gave her Monday?
Additional Help
Let's assume Mrs Adams only has two children and all of the other families has three or more. Mrs Adams could get overwhelmed at the prospect of being responsible for 18 or more children. You can decide, at your planning meeting, to have each family choose a "helping day" so that your schedule looks more like this;
Monday- Jones house, Osborne helping
Tuesday- Kennedy house, Jones helping
Wednesday- Adams house, Kennedy helping
Thursday- Simmons house, Adams helping
Friday- Osborne house, Simmons helping
Bonus Freebies
Did you notice that each family "worked" two days in a row (Except for the Osbornes, 2 days in a row would just be too much to ask) That means that the other days were completely "Off" If you're the one setting up the camp I'd recommend a strategic positioning of your days off and book a day at the spa or schedule a long nap. For heaven's sake, don't use this time to clean the house.
End-Of-Camp BBQ
Try to plan a family BBQ for everyone involved. To make it easier, have the Osbornes host it on Friday (since the kids will be there anyway) and have everyone else bring the Potluck foods. The end-of-camp party is great fun and gives Dads a chance to mingle (because we know men love that, right?) If Friday doesn't work, perhaps a Saturday pool party or even overnight camp-out somewhere local.
Be creative. Have Fun. And most of all, relax and enjoy the summer.
by Lisa
DIY Cheap Summer Camp Co-op
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This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
What a fun idea! I love that! I hope, hope, hope and pray, pray, pray that we find some homeschooling families near us as Amelia gets older!