June 6, 2020

Dear Diary,

There are exactly 8,685 minutes remaining until school is out for the summer. In case you were wondering, I was able to calculate this figure in my head in mere seconds thanks to all of the common core math exercises I have been doing as of late.

As you may recall, my reverie over the imminent culmination of my governess duties was recently interrupted by Hubby who gently reminded me that we soon faced three months of no school with no camps lined up. 

After initially panicking, I sat the children down and asked them if there were any virtual camps that interested them. I dropped words like “Minecraft Coding”, “Harry Potter”, and “Virtual Escape Room” in my desperate attempt to entice them. 

“What about Mom Camp?” they both inquired. 

You see, after construction woes disrupted our summer plans last year, I was in a similar position - no booked summer camps and no real ability to do so at that late hour. The kids and I forged our own camp, which we dubbed Mom Camp, which basically involved daily field trips to places like the local bowling alley, an indoor rock climbing gym, our swim & tennis club, and various museums and amusement parks. It was a truly fun summer, but not one which could be easily recreated during current COVID-19 restrictions.

After mulling it over for a few days, I realized that my options were limited. I could attempt to find some virtual camps which might appeal to the kids, but the reality would be that I would have to constantly fight them to participate several times a day, not to mention the annoying rigmarole of keeping track of multiple Zoom ID’s and passwords. Or, I could brainstorm with them the things they would like to do over the summer and prepare another Mom Camp, which hopefully met all of our needs. 

The kids and I sat down and created a camp which is a mix of board games, simple cooking & baking, STEM-based activity kits, arts & crafts, biking, nature walks and swimming. It’s not insanely intense and affords me (and them) plenty of free time throughout the day to get other work done and will keep us all on a regular schedule throughout the summer. 

I ordered the bulk of my activity kits from Kiwico.com. Here are a couple of examples of things I ordered:

(1) Fire Lab: Make a colorful flame lamp and complete 7 combustion experiments that explore the chemistry of oxidation, the flame test, and light energy.

(2) Hydraulic Claw: Construct your own lifting claw and learn how hydraulic systems work. Continue the experimentation with bonus design challenges.  (Hot Tip: The website will post additional DIY activities to do with the Claw as of June 22nd).

(3) Color Changing Slime: Explore the science of thermochromism — with squishy slime that shifts color when it changes temperature!

Most of the kits are around $25.00 in price and interesting / challenging enough for the kids to do together, so I bought only one of each. In total, I spent less than $500 for the entire summer’s activities, which is far less than any summer camp I could find, virtual or otherwise.

Thankfully, Amy Beth has committed to overseeing the daily nature walks, and has expressed interest in participating in some of the arts and crafts activities like t-shirt tie-dying and screen printing. Hubby has offered to be the official taste-taster of all cooking and baking, and will contribute mightily to much of the scheduled family time (like arranging outdoor family movie nights and barbecues.)

It obviously won’t be a relaxing summer, Diary, but my hope is that it will be a memorable one that the children will look back on fondly as a time in which we truly bonded as a family. It is also my dream that these memories bring them peace, comfort and joy from the dormitories of their new remote boarding schools, which is where we will be sending them as soon as this pandemic is over. ;-)

Very truly yours,

Maya