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Summer camp at home
Many businesses are jumping in with other ways for you to host summer camp, in your own home.
NEW YORK - Officially summer day camps are back open, but throughout the Tri-State area many camps decided to close for the season due to COVID-19, and many parents chose not to send their kids to camp out of an abundance of caution.
That means, parents are struggling with how to keep kids busy all summer, especially as many parents continue to work from home. Parents desperation to keep their kids busy has led to a spike in the sales of everything from bicycles, swing sets, inflatable pools and other outdoor toys.
Now many businesses are jumping in with other ways for you to host summer camp, in your own home.
"This summer we realized parents would have a need to bring that summer camp experience home, " Amy Norman of Little Passports said. That's why little passports created camp in a box. "We have two different versions one that is geared towards world travel and another that is geared toward science. they both come with a ton of projects in the box as well as online activities," Norman says.
The Little Passport kits are geared to keep younger kids busy for six days, three to four hours a day, all while limiting screen time.
"We know that kids have both been on zoom or remote learning a ton and a lot of kids are doing video games right now so parents are looking for something that gets kids off the devices," Norman says.
Little Passports is also offering free online content full of fun ideas perfect for summer, including a "super fun DIY solar oven where you get to make your own s’mores in the oven and a DIY summer sprinkler who doesn’t love a summer sprinkler and this is a DIY you build it with a bottle and kids get to run through it," Norma says.
Once they are in a DIY mood, kids can try out some craft kits. "The whole team at Michaels have thought about crafts that your kids would do when they were at traditional summer camps and have made it easy for things they can do at home," Michael's spokesperson Lynn Lilly said.
Michaels is recommending everything from friendship bracelets to decorating your own sneakers, and the season's hottest trend, tie-dye.
"Tie-dye is the hottest trends of the summer and we’ve got tons of videos on Michaels.com and Michaels social media pages. It so much fun, the kids always love it," Lilly said.
Kid can paint the rainbow in cake or cookies, celebrations in the kitchen a bakery in Hicksville had to stop doing kids baking birthday parties because of COVID. Now it's shipping kids baking kits nationwide.
"We came out with a whole line of baking kits like cookie decorating, cupcake baking donut making, cake pops, and one of the most popular, a candy explosion kit. It comes with pastry bags and spatulas and the candy filling. and they get to put together this awesome cake," Rachael Marretta of Celebrations In The Kitchen said.
With the baking already done, the kits can be done by kids with little supervision.
"Kids can do it on their own. I've heard from so many parents that it entertains their kids for hours they sit there they decorate their cookies it’s very easy the parents can go along with their day. If they have to work from home set the kids up and they are honestly entertained for hours," Marretta said.
If STEM is more your child's speed, how about a virtual robotics coding camp? Smart buddies "camp in a box" teaches kids coding over zoom, with the help of a doll on a scooter.
"We teach you how to drive it forward, and backward do left and right turns, radius and we get more advanced as the days go on and by the end we have a talent show where kids are doing coding dances with their robots, obstacle courses," Sharmi Albrechtsen, co-founder of Smart Gurlz said.
The two-week camp isn't just about coding... It allows kids to socialize too with one zoom session each day set up for coding lessons and the other for interacting with friends. "It's essential for kids these days they are so lonely they haven’t seen their friends because of COVID."
Virtual camp isn't just for science. Kids can learn about acting and improv with Groundlings Theatre School. They are hosting 5-day camps or drop-in sessions, teaching character building and improv. "One of my favorite games to teach is scavenger hunt where we have students go around their rooms or their homes and pick out items we can use as props that might show a little bit of their personality. That becomes a prop you can build a character on and then have the students improvise around that character," Michael Churven a Groundlings instructor said.
The camp culminates with the kids putting on a virtual show.
Most of these "camps" also say they will continue to offer activities in the Fall when most students will most likely only be returning to the school building part-time.