We have one week to go until summer vacation begins for Bush Boy. He is very ready for a break, as we all are, from the routine and daily chore of school. Summer weather means places to explore, gardens to plant and watch, berries to pick and oceans/lakes/rivers to be swum in. In the past years this has been our summer – but this year we are trying a few new things.
What I found over the past three summers was that Bush Boy started to go squirrely and melt-down by mid-August. I realized that although I love to let our days come as they may, he needed a little more structure. So this year we have him up for two things: a skateboarding morning lessons camp for one week in July, and an outdoor exploring day camp for one week in August. I am hoping that these will give him something to focus on and help us all enjoy the summer a little bit more. He is very excited about both camps.
How about you? How do you or did you get through a long summer break with your kid(s)?
-edited to add that we are also going camping for about three weeks total over the summer, more if we can.
Rocks, Waves, Beach 
This is a great idea.
We have in the past gone camping, for a few days here and there, headed to the lake often, had several sleep overs either in house or kids out of house, tenting in the yard, a couple of time years ago we headed to Prince George to see Kevin’s family and made a few stops along the way and visited with his family as we went.
Billie has done a couple of soccer camps over the years.
This year as of so far we have not a one thing planned. I think that we will take it as it comes and hope for the best…I would like to do some camping so we’ll see how that pans out.
Great post Kate! I can’t wait to see what some of the other responses are :-)
Rona
By: Rona on June 18, 2009
at 6:45 pm
A little structure is definitely good. Even my teens can use a little. The older teen is doing some volunteer work and giving guitar lessons, and the younger is signed up for parkour classes, which he loves, and in August he’ll have a movie-making camp. That’ll be enough.
By: Amy Rea on June 19, 2009
at 5:56 am
My two are little (3 & 4) so we just try to get out of the house a lot. We go to the library, throw rocks in the lake, to the playground, out for ice cream, walking in the woods, weed the garden, play in the sandbox, and watch TV on rainy days. I also try to mix in baking and some fun crafts. My two both still nap, so going out means we try to be out the door by 9:00 and home by 1:00. Also on Wednesday mornings we are going to go to “Arts and Nature in the Park.” It’s new for usso I’ll have to let you know how it goes.
By: Liz on June 20, 2009
at 3:13 am