Hello, campers
Welcome to Camp Awesomesauce
Happy you could join us. I’ll be logging our adventures here and sharing all the tools and links I’m using to make this DIY summer camp as awesome as it can be.
To download the free DIY summer camp guide for parents along with the camper journal, leave your email below to get started.
Follow and connect with me on Instagram at @eunicekindred or use the hashtag #campawesomesauce to share your adventures. I’d love to see!
Before we get this party started…
What I miss about the summer camp: the girls coming home worn out from playing, swimming, running, playing outside—alot. All the things we remember about being kids during summer. This would have been the first summer for the girls to actually go to camp together and I know they (ok, Nyla) was excited about it. But oh, COVID… thanks for throwing us another curveball. Camps here may not come resume until the end of july (if at all). I’m wary of the sleepaway camps in neighboring states. “virtual camps” seem too ambitious at the girls’ ages. Sooo….homeschool teacher cap off. Camp director whistle ON.
Determined to keep summer feeling like summer I decided to set up “Camp Awesomesauce.” Awesomesauce is what we’ve coined our podcast show and it just felt right to carry the name over to this DIY camp. And I have a little secret for you (don’t tell the kids): This isn’t that different from the homeschooling schedule we had during the school year. I just threw in alot of fun activities they wanted to do and packaged it up with a shiny new bow called “Camp Awesomesauce.” And just like our homeschool/covidacademy adventures I organized for the latter part of the school year, there’s a lot of trial and error that goes into this. Some things will work, some won’t and that’s totally ok.
I’m sharing everything that I’m doing here to hopefully help any of you parents out there who just want to be given the tools or be given some structure for the summer. I know I’m not the only parent struggling to keep the kids engaged while still having to actually do work work. As much as I’d love to leave youtube and netflix to babysit them, I know that’ll come back to bite us come fall. So this is the plan, I’m sticking to it (for now). This is a real time experiment and i’m taking it week by week. We’ll see how I’m feeling after two weeks (you might find me hiding in a corner sipping margaritas). Good luck parents!
A few notes:
Sign up to receive the free parent Camp Awesomesauce planner guide. It’s a good starting point and gives you the lay of the land.
Flexibility is KEY. The structure of each of our days is literally there for me to have something to follow so I don’t have to think about what the kids could be doing. I know work fires happens. Deadlines are deadlines. Some days I may have a 3 hour client workshop on zoom. Those are the days when I’ll say “SURPRISE, MOVIE DAY!” Switch your days, designate one day/two days as just a literal free day (hello, ipad/tv..have at it!), seriously - it’s all up to you.
Activities are determined by the kids. In the planner guide, there’s a Summer bucket list brainstorming page which I suggest you do with your kids. It is the key to the kids being engaged. I also have the Parent bucket list which are the non-negotiables. Things that must happen everyday. This can be as simple as chores (make your bed, do the dishes, set the table) or enrichment focused (20 minutes of reading, 20 minutes of math). All up to you. Even during previous summers, I had the girls doing something education based everyday to prevent the summer slide.
I have not been paid by any of vendors/companies I feature. Just sharing what we actually do and pay for. If someone offers us a free class or service, I will note it. You’ll know if it’s a big hit if we continue to use it. If you decide to take a class we’re in please let us know! or feature it on social with the hashtag #campawesomesauce
Have fun. It’s summer. We’re in the middle of a pandemic. Sometimes I feel tired of running around/setting up activities but then I’m also grateful that I actually get to spend time with them. Positivity goes a long way. when I tell you I hyped up Camp for the days leading up to “launch” they got so excited they started telling everyone. I think people think they are going to an actual camp.
Week 1 of camp!
is this going to work?
I overslept.
But we still squeezed in 40 min of outside time, aka Exploration Rangers, before their standing 9am coding class. They bike, I run - everyone gets a workout. Win win. I sat them down in the middle of our workout and introduced the structure and schedule of “camp”. I set the expectations down, hyped up everything. Then we headed back home to start the day. Recap:
Winter was way more excited than Nyla. She walked into my room dressed and ready to go and told me to get up and get dressed. Nyla (who went to sleep late) was obviously irritated at having to leave the warmth of her bed but had a serious case of FOMO and grudgingly got dressed and came along
First fail of the day happened with our cooking class with Freshmade NYC. It was a bust because I had NO potatoes for the Boardwalk Fries making class. I even ran to 3 corner stores hoping they (somehow) carried potatoes? LOL what was I thinking… I had to email them and ask if we could jump into another class later in the week.
I set the rule that free choice time also meant no screen time. Winter, our resident gamer, spent that first 30 min bemoaning her boredom, but seeing that she wasn’t going to win the screen battle with me, soon resorted to made-up games with Nyla.
The “loophole” in the screen-free rule-which I think Winter has uncovered-occurs with “Reading Rockets” (fancy term I gave for reading time) because she can either read actual books or use EPIC (online book reading app). She chose EPIC today.
Know where to get cheap activity craft and science sets? Century21, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Lotless, Michael’s, and similar discount stores. I found a Grow Your Own Crystals Set on amazon for $14-$30. Century 21: $9.99. Other science kits which I also scooped up were around $5-$10
We tried out a Parkour class we found on kidpass. Both the girls (much to my urging) gave it a try but reported back “the warmup was tooo long” (it wasn’t a warm-up - that was actually the class. We won’t be trying it again.
Highlights this week:
Game time coding with Scratch Jr by CodeAdvantage
Summer Road Trip series by FreshmadeNYC
Parkour via Kidpass (here’s a referral link for $20 off)
Hello week 2!
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The schedule has some tweaking but here it is:
Here’s what we’re using this week:
Snapology Minecraft themed lego building class. Our first attempt at a half day camp/workshop. We booked this on kidpass.
Hudson River Park kicks off their virtual summer series, River Rangers. download their activities here
Shake Shack has a home summer camp which looks fun but also has a lot of goodies/coupons thrown in their camp box. It costs $80 but supposedly has 6 WEEKS of supplies so i’m giving it a go. Learn more here
Camp stores is also teaming up with walmart and having a free summer camp. they also have some live programming going on so we also signed up to see what it is all about. We are on Team Cobras - let us know what team y’all are on! Enroll here
Codespark is an alternative to us using codeadvantage - their classes were full this week so we are going to try to do self-guided exercises. Lean more