DIY Day Camps During Pandemic

Anyone with a child at home under the age of 18 is experiencing some level of stress as summer stretches out before us in a world dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic. This is NOT a post to debate the issues of whether or not to venture out for organized activities or camps. If you want that local (Arizona) debate, there is a great post from Raising Arizona Kids.

However, if you have decided to create your own "at-home" experience, here are some resources that might help you. The key point is plan, plan, plan! If your kids are at camp, whether sleep camp or day camp, their schedules are tightly controlled. To create your DIY camp, I would suggest doing the same. My second suggestion is to make these activities feel "different." You've been home with the kids for some time now and to get everyone in the "camp" mood, this needs to feel special or different. Of course, you can always pick and choose fun activities from this list. So, let's create your own DIY summer camp with step-by-step instructions!

1. Create a name for your camp. Many years ago, I entertained my (now adult) niece and nephew at Camp Campbell.  One of our first "arts and crafts" activities was making a camp shirt.  Here's a link for an easy way to make tie-dye shirts with acrylic paint. It would be very easy to create some stencils with your "camp" name and paint them on after your tie-dye shirts are done. You just created 2 days of arts and crafts activities and a memento of their camping experience!

2. Plan your "camp" meals. If you want to keep it easy in a "day camp" setting, you just need to plan fun lunches that you can eat picnic style. I've packed a ton of ideas onto a special Pinterest board, Day Camp so you should have no problem planning ahead. If you really want to be adventurous and include a "sleep-over" camp with a fire, don't forget to include the s'mores and at least one "campfire" meal.  I've also included some links on the Day Camp Pinterest board for that.

3. Keep a strict schedule. Be sure to plan educational activities, physical activities, arts & crafts and quiet time into your camp, keeping in mind the ages of your campers. See the list of links below as well as my Pinterest Day Camp page for specific ideas on each type of activity. Consider creating a schedule board for each day, or a handout for the "campers" so they know exactly what is coming.

4. Consider at least one overnight camp out in the yard. This could include a tent and campfire, or as simple as some blankets and sleeping bags in the living room. 

5. Get some "camp counselors." If you have older kids, get them involved! Younger kids will be thrilled, you give those older kids something to do, and take some of the pressure as "camp director" off of you!

6. Have a specific "start" and "stop" to camp, especially if you are doing a "day camp" format. It's not sustainable to keep "camp" going indefinitely and kids will likely lose interest if you try. Keeping a "start" and "stop" is almost as important as keeping a strict schedule because it gives kids the feeling of something "different".  You also get time off when camp is not in session!

Can't bear to do this alone at home?  Here are some resources to local virtual day camps this summer. 

Ideas for Educational Activities

• Phoenix Water Services has a brand new digital resources pages. The left side is for kids and the right is for adults. Don't miss the fun videos of "Wayne Drop" and "Loo Poo".  There are activity books with coloring pages you can print for the little ones or order free hard copies in advance. Be sure to check out the tons of lesson plans you can use.

• Virtual Water Festival is another page from Arizona Project WET and geared to teaching elementary students (especially 4th grade) about water. Filled with videos, lessons and games, this is a treasure trove.
• STEM Lessons Activities from Nerding teaches how to build or do a bunch of fun things, especially for elementary and middle schoolers.
• Mystery Science has a ton of activities for kids, Kindergarten through Middle School
• Make a Time Capsule What better time than now??
• Make homemade cards and send a letter to relatives (just like at camp!)
• Grow Borax Crystals
• Make Elephant Toothpaste with a few household items. Cool science experiment - outside.
• Make up stories, create your own book and illustrate (this can be done over several days)

Ideas for Physical Activities

• Play at Home - This is a great, interactive and local website that includes mindfulness, songs and a little yoga. It's especially great for preschoolers.
• Children's Museum of Phoenix has a bunch of videos with movement and yoga, as well as other videos with projects and learning.
• Swimming - Don't have a pool? Create a slip & slide with the hose, bubbles and/or shaving cream. Hose them down when you're done. See a bunch of DIY slip & slides on Pinterest
• Biking
• Scavenger Hunt, Obstacle Course or Relay Game - see my Day Camp board on Pinterest for tons of outside games you can put together for a relay
• Paint with Squirt Guns - Arts & crafts and physical activity in one!
• Make bubbles - see Pinterest for a recipe for giant bubbles

Ideas for Arts & Crafts

• As You Wish Pottery has complete kits you can pick up or they can ship to you!
• STG Top 5 Kids Crafts - our very own!
• Cake decorating. This is fun whether you have a lot of supplies for decorating or just a few. Each kid gets to make their own cake and then decorate it.

• Create Birdseed Hearts - for a truly outdoor craft
• Make Painted Kindness Rocks and then take a walk and leave them around your neighborhood!
• Salt Painting
• Q-Tip Painted Art
• Tie-Dye T-shirts
• Make homemade pizzas

Ideas for Quiet Time

• Listen to some stories!  There are lots of resources on the internet now to watch videos of someone reading to kids.  Here are a few of my favorites:
• Hall of Flame Museum
• Phoenix Public Library
• Dolly Parton
• NASA with Story Time from Space

• Virtual Field Trips! offered through Arizona State University are seriously cool for K-8 to explore
• Australian Reptile Park has a number of short, engaging videos on its YouTube channel featuring animals American kids don't get to see much, including koalas!
• San Diego Zoo has a bunch of animal cams for your viewing pleasure
• Kitten Rescue Cam because everyone needs a kitty fix.
• National Geographic Kid Videos - This includes some great projects and games.

Whatever you decide to do this summer, take some time to relax. It's been a hard couple of months for everyone and you deserve it!

cindy

Isn't She Lovely?

That was the Stevie Wonder song we picked as background to her First Birthday video.  It's what I hear in my head when I look at her today:

Today was her promotion ceremony and she starts high school in the fall.  Two kids in high school!  Where did the time go?

It seems like last week I dropped her off at Brownies or softball or kindergarten.  A couple of days ago she was talking about studying nursing in college and moving away.

She's smart, sassy and kind.  She's beautiful - but she has no idea.  (Maybe that's OK too.)  We are so proud of her.

It's the time of year for graduations, and so many of our friends have graduations - college, high school, eighth grade, kindergarten.  Regardless of the age, the truth is all the same - time passes, children don't stay children forever any more than they stayed babies forever.  There's never enough time to think about it and get the most out of every age before the next age or stage or phase comes along.

So right now I'm liking this age, even with the disagreements and the rolling eyes and exasperated "Mom!"  I remember being this age and its nice to be there with her as she picks her way through a rapidly changing time in her life.

I just want these last four years before college to slow down - just a little bit - so we can enjoy them together.

Just don't blink.

cindy

It Takes Just A Second

Last night we attended a graduation party. The hosts have a large pool with various seating areas scattered around their backyard. It was a pretty good crowd and we were there for a few hours. We were having a nice time talking to a couple with three beautiful young daughters, ages 11, 8 and 3. We were standing near a table with chairs around it near the pool and it was getting pretty dark out there. The kids were moving around, eating, talking and playing.  Nothing extraordinary. Suddenly, the husband asked the wife "Where's the baby?" referring to the 3 year old. She had stepped around the table where he couldn't see her and we were all talking. The other girls just looked at him. We were so close to the pool.

Do you know what happened next?

No, the baby didn't fall into the pool. Her mom and I were talking, but between the two of us, we had an eye on the toddler. Once the husband knew where the baby was, we went back to our conversations, but I bet there was a third pair of eyes on her after that.

Every year in Arizona multiple children die or are severely disabled in pool accidents. Every year we hear the same thing - watch your kids around water.

It can happen so fast. We could have taken our eyes off that baby for just 30 seconds and that would be plenty of time for her to be in the pool. Little ones don't necessarily hold their breath or make noise when they when they unexpectedly fall into a pool. It can happen at night or in broad daylight. I can't tell you how many times I have seen news stories of children found at the bottom of pools in the middle of the day during a party. There are so many eyes, it just seems counterintuitive that a child would slip under the water and no one would notice. But it does.

If you have a young child and a pool, there must be barriers between them. A locked patio door won't work if the child can go through the doggie door (there have been several drownings in Arizona like that). If your child can reach and operate the latch on the pool gate by standing on a nearby chair, there is no barrier. If your child or your family is at someone else's house, you need to know if there are barriers are between them and the pool. If there are no barriers, you must watch them.  EVERY. SINGLE. SECOND. Don't depend on other people at the party, even if there are quite a few. There is no guarantee someone will see your child, and if it is dark or the party is big, it's pretty likely that someone won't see your child fall into the pool.

Accidents can and do happen. I'm certainly not preaching because my kids are teenagers and most of the time I want to push them into the pool. I'm just giving that friendly PSA.

Please, watch your kids around water.

Cindy

So What's Up With You?

I haven't been around these parts in a little while, but Straddling the Gap still lives.  The last 9 months have been occupied with fundraising, planning, stressing and looking for donors.  Why?  My husband's children's choir, Pueri Cantores St. Bernard of Clairvaux, is going to Rome at this time next year to participate in the International Congress of Pueri Cantores.  Huh?  We get to sing for Pope Francis on New Year's Day 2016!!

It's an amazing opportunity to join nearly 5,000 other children from all over the world singing together in the Catholic Church's official language - Latin.  We are the only group from Arizona that is going and we're very proud of our kids - ages 9 through 18.  So was it enough to have this enormous endeavor on his plate?  Oh no.  I volunteered to be the chairperson of a $150,000 development campaign to fund the trip.  Yikes!

It has been a whirlwind to say the least.  We've had some adventures in fundraising and learned about development campaigns.  We're still learning.  Daily.  Sometimes I think we are learning by osmosis - constantly absorbing.  It's been thrilling but frustrating.  Scary and exhilarating all at the same time.  And we're only halfway through.

This has left me with little time to write Straddling the Gap and I do miss it.  So, for 2015 I'm going to write about what I'm doing.  Unfortunately it's not much crafting or sewing, but our fundraisers are interesting.  Next time I'll tell you about our newest fundraising endeavor - we have a tiger by the tail and a trip for two on the line.

In the meantime, if you want to hear more about our choir, please visit our website at www.pcsbc.org or like Pueri Cantores St. Bernard of Clairvaux on Facebook.

Cindy

Everybody is Back

They're baaaaacck.

Everybody.

Who is Everybody?  Or should I say who are Everybody?  I think they are related to Everyone.

I'm not sure who they are, but I do know my kids go to school with them.  They are on every child's sports team, school club or just hanging out at friends' houses.  I bet your kid knows them too.  But who are they?

You've heard your kid talk about them:  "Everybody has a backpack like that."  "I am the only kid without a cell phone!  Everybody has one!"  "Everybody gets to go hang out at the park, why can't I?"

School has seemed to flush Everybody out.

I just want to know who Everybody is.  They definitely aren't my kids and it's doubtful they are yours.  Who are the parents of Everybody?  Someone might need to report them to the child welfare services because they are doing some questionable things.

When I figure out who Everybody is, I intend to get to the bottom of who Everyone and Nobody are.  Clearly children know who they are, but they won't tell you their names.  However, Everyone knows the names of Everybody and Nobody because Everyone knows that!  I think there might be a need to call child welfare services to investigate the parents of Nobody, because they seem to be the kids lacking safety equipment, warm clothes and sensible shoes.

Just remember - now that school is back in session, drive carefully.  You need to watch out for Everybody.  And if your kids want to bring them home, get their names.

And let me know who they are.

cindy

The Way It Ought to Be

My son participates in a an extracurricular school for the arts and every year about this time they do a revue with the various age groups.  The theme this year was America, and this little group did some great little numbers

They were so sweet.  Each came forward and sang little solos, including "God Bless America."

I loved it, but it also made me cry.

These are kindergarteners.

This is the way kindergarteners should be spending a Saturday before Christmas.

cindy

Family Wedding

Sometimes it's good to go home.  I'm getting to that middle age when you only get to see your extended family at funerals.  Last weekend we traveled to Illinois for a joyous purpose - my brother's wedding.  My four brothers and sisters, husbands and wives as well as most of their children, were there to celebrate.  We are really quite the crowd:

I didn't realize my immediate family was so big until I looked at this picture.  Not only did my immediate family attend, a good number of my cousins with their kids (and a few grandkids) showed up.  I had 23 cousins on my mother's side growing up and counting their spouses, children and grandchildren, there were 21 family members there representing the original 23.  That might not sound like a lot of family members to some people, but my cousins are scattered from Boston to Virginia, from New Orleans to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and everything in between, especially southern Illinois.  The best part?  Because of social media, I feel like I still know what my cousins are doing most of the time.  Gotta love it.

We don't get too many chances these days to gather for occasions like weddings.  My mother was one of five girls and in the last four years, 3 of them have died, including my mother.  It's wonderful to know that even as my mother's generation is waning, their children still enjoy getting together and introducing new members of their families.  How ironic that probably the last wedding of the cousins is my brother's, the oldest cousin.

My kids were very surprised to find out how many "cousins" they have.  Here are the first cousins:

My daughter kept asking how she was related to all the other family she was meeting.  I kept repeating that they were all "cousins," some just farther removed.  During her week in Illinois, she also visited with my husband's family, including "cousins."  After we returned to Arizona, she missed being so far away from her extended family on both sides.  As the unofficial family genealogist, I was thrilled to see both of my children so interested in their family roots.

My cousins used to comment that such a large family came from the five "Wilbourn girls" (my mother and her sisters).  As we get older, our families have become very extended.  My kids and their cousins will now look to the five "Hendricks kids" as their source.

Mom and Dad would be so proud.

cindy

Wordle

Do you sometimes feel like everyone knows about something you don't?  I had that feeling tonight when I found my daughter playing on a website called Wordle.  Once I looked at it, I realized how many of you are doing your word art.  Shame on you for not sharing!  I'm still not great at this, but I'm having fun trying.  (Please excuse my screen shots, I haven't figured out how to get these images in anything larger than a thumbnail)

Just so no one can accuse me of failing to share . . . Wordle is a website where you type words or paste text and it creates a word "picture".  The more you use a word, the larger it appears.  The picture above represents some of my labels from Straddling the Gap.  

You can use the "Randomize" button to create different font, colors, backgrounds without trying.  Here are words A to Z in two different settings:

Our school has started to use this as a way for kids to practice spelling words - isn't that clever?  It makes it fun to practice their spelling words (and it's great for mom because Wordle has spell-check.)  Here are Mackenzie's spelling words this week:

You can also design your word art the way you want.  You can pick from a bunch of fonts, align horizontal, vertical or any which way, choose colors and backgrounds.  I'll warn you now - it's pretty addictive - not Pinterest, but great for a half hour or so.  However long you like to do it, your elementary kids will LOVE it.

cindy

On the Go

I know my blog is called "Straddling the Gap," but these days my whole family is straddling lots of huge gaps.  The kids are so busy with activities, it's all Kent and I can do to keep up.  Mackenzie has religious education, choir, softball, Girl Scouts and martial arts.  Christian has religious education, Boy Scouts, bowling, Do-Re-Mi (music group), martial arts and youth group.  (And we were worried he wouldn't have enough social interaction with homeschooling!)

Kent and I do a lot of "hand-offs."  Because his days are spent teaching our son, he does his work in the evening and on weekends.  I come home, we say hello and goodbye, and I see him about an hour before bedtime.  It's not the easiest arrangement, but it appears to work best for the kids.  It's a little more hectic for Kent and I.  Kent recently told me "Welcome to the tween years."  I guess so.

The next 10 years are going to be interesting.  Our kids will go through the teen years into college and we will approach retirement.  I tell myself that our kids will keep us young, but in the meantime I might get a lot more gray hair.

Buckle up.

cindy

Friday Coffee Date

If we were having coffee today ...
I'm sure our conversation would be all about the massacre in Colorado and how tragic it was for the victims.
I imagine our conversation would turn to the issue of gun control and the pros and cons of that issue.
We might even pray together for the victims and their families.
We would probably mention the 3 month old who was injured in the theater.  As moms we would probably wonder why anyone would take an infant to a loud action movie at midnight.
We would wonder what kind of person would do this to innocent people.
Most of all we would be sad and probably unable to speak about anything else this morning because everything else seems so trivial.
Even if we can't meet for coffee today, let's say some prayers together, OK?

cindy