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Top Mommy Camp Tips



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Spaghetti7




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 12:40 am
Hit me with your best.
Specs: Mommy camp for 6 and 5 year old boys and 2 year old girl. On a budget. We're in Israel. 3 weeks.

GO!
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amother
Purple


 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 2:39 am
following
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yerushamama




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 2:56 am
When it's not too hot, try taking a bus to a park in another neighborhood. Bake cookies. Make bubble mixture to make huge bubbles. Be on the lookout for free events in local malls. Have a toy / game exchange with friends.
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grivky




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 4:44 am
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 4:48 am
yerushamama wrote:
When it's not too hot, try taking a bus to a park in another neighborhood. Bake cookies. Make bubble mixture to make huge bubbles. Be on the lookout for free events in local malls. Have a toy / game exchange with friends.


Not in E"Y but this sounded like Camp Mommy over here (minus toy/game exchange. Interesting idea. I just did a lot of garage sailing to get some extras).
I don't know what your options are. We built a lot of our early summers around mall activities and summer library programs. And museum and zoo memberships.

I know you want to save money but sometimes you'll have to spend. We did stuff like bowling and mini golf here and there too. When your kids are this little though, you can stick with low key stuff.

Hatzlacha and enjoy!
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amother
Oak


 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 5:23 am
Make slime, EVERYONE loves it.
When my kids were little their preschool Morah made once a week.
She called it goop.

Kids love to make challah. You can send it home raw, to bake at home. Also cookies.

Scavenger hunt at the supermarket. No need to buy anything. They can take pictures of the kids holding the item. It could be as simple as finding a food with every letter of the alphabet.

For the boys Lots of relay raises like pop the balloon, water balloon toss, which team can hold a balloon between their legs and and run. Steel the salami.

Can you get a mini pool for the little ones.

Try to schedule 30 minute slots of active/quiet activities.
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L25




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 5:37 am
we do "camp mommy".

My advice is talk to your kids and see what they want to do. Do they like to bake, arts and craft projects, going to local playgrounds... base your plans on things they enjoy and you don't mid Wink

Take time for yourself. My rule is that when we get home from someplace I get to veg out a little bit, they shouldn't expect me to entertain them then.

look for free local things to do. here we have libraries...that we can go to.

water play is well liked. We've bought crayons to color with in the bathtub and it was a huge hit.
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dankbar




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 6:02 am
if you have a theme it becomes more exciting. Any simple activity is more fun if it matches into the theme.
A thread was recently opened on camp mommy with great ideas. There are also old threads on camp mommy from prior years
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yerushamama




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 6:18 am
Maybe try to coordinate with other "Mommy camps" in your area.
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mp5




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 6:44 am
When my kids were younger we did Mommy camp every year on a tight budget. I used to plan a daily schedule and weekly/daily activities, we still have some of our self-decorated "Mommy Camp is the BEST" hats we made way back when. I wish we still had the T-shirts... My son's tiny camp shirt would fit on one arm now.

First of all, planning ahead is key so you're well ahead. I started by making a daily schedule (time to get up, breakfast, daven, group activity, outing etc.) - keep in mind to make time for yourself not just at the end of the day but sometime between events. It really helps to try to stick to a time schedule if possible to get a routine going.

For activity ideas, I used this book constantly - https://www.amazon.com/365-TV-.....27552 and I still have it and highly recommended for anyone who has young children. It has some great ideas of things you can do with kids of all ages without needing to buy 'special stuff'.
When I made the daily schedule, I would save something fun or a surprise for the end of the day so they would know when to expect it and also to encourage them along in the bedtime routine when they (and I) were exhausted and cranky.

After making a daily schedule you look at the week and figure out one, two, or however many 'big outings' are possible, depending on what is available, if you have transportation etc. and fit as many as you want into each week. It doesn't have to be fancy or even an outing - you can invite a family member over and make cookies (home-made and kids-decorated gingerbread men were a hit at our house) or open a plastic pool and play water games. The idea is that if you plan around it, you can make anything fun. Almost. But I do recommend getting out when you can.

I made a big poster-calendar and marked the 'special' things we were planning on doing so the kids could look forward to them as well. The kids decorated it and we hung it up in a visible place all summer.

The second key element for 'Mommy Camp' is flexibility. As important as planning ahead is, kids will be kids and many times you have to shift and change the schedule to accommodate 'life'. That's fine. Just expect it and also explain to your kids ahead of time that sometimes things might change but if, say, you can't open a pool one day you'll do your best to do it another day instead.

I hope this helps.

Wishing all you Mommies of young children a wonderful, happy, relaxed and fun summer vacation!
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33055




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 6:54 am
A schedule is key to mommy camp as the other poster said.

We did a trip every week. I also had canteen, arts and crafts, sports, pajama day, fancy lady day, etc. We had dovening first and then light learning.
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Gneshe




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Jun 16 2019, 9:07 am
I always worked with theme and the kids loved it. At the end of every day we wrote in a special journal about what we did. If the kids were old enough they wrote. Otherwise, I did. My kids still love reading that book.
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