With many summer camps cancelled due to COVID, families are having to get creative and come up with ways to keep the kids busy while school is out!

Many summer camps plan their activities around theme weeks.  It keeps things fresh and gives kids something to look forward to, especially when they are excited about an upcoming theme.

If you’re looking for ways to keep your kids busy, consider doing some theme weeks at home!  To help you with ideas, we’ve created the Summer Camp at Home series.  Throughout the summer we’ll be sharing theme week ideas complete with activities, supply lists and more.

First up…Water Week! Water Week is 5 days of full of water experiences, games, experiments, toys and more.

Day 1 – Water Safety and Play Day

• Teach the kids about water safety. Gold Fish Swim School has a series of videos on YouTube dedicated to water safety.  You can find them here.
• Depending on the age of your child, you could incorporate information about how to teach kids to perform CPR. Here’s a video to help.
  There’s also this book from Amazon that teaches kids the basics of first aid.  At the end of the book they can earn their “Official Junior Paramedics” card.
• End the day by setting up a sprinkler and letting the kids play some games. Here is a list of sprinkler games.
• If you need a sprinkler, here’s one we found on Amazon!

Day 2 –  Water Experiments

For Toddlers or Younger Kids

• Go to the dollar store and buy something small they can “dig for”. Could be colored marbles, little army men, plastic figurines, what ever you can find that might interest them.
• Buy a small plastic bin too. It could be shoe box size or a little bigger.
• Put the toys in the bin, add water and freeze.
• Give your kids a hammer and let them chip away at the ice to uncover all the toys.
• This Sink or Float activity is also good for younger kids.

For Older Kids

• Here’s are a few sites with easy at-home experiments:
  • The Magic Water Experiment
  • Oil and Water Experiment
  • Climbing Rainbow
  • Walking Water

Day 3 – Water War Day

• Get the kids to make “hiding spots”. These could be two lawn chairs with a towel over them, or anything you have in your yard they can “hide” behind.
• Get big buckets for “filling stations”. You can use what you have around the house or get buckets like this from Amazon.
• Then fill a bunch of water balloons. You can use regular balloons or make your like easy and buy Bunchos! Get squirt guns and some blasters.   The Dollar Tree usually has both in summer but if you can’t find them in stores or would like some higher quality ones to last the summer, here’s water guns and blasters on Amazon.
• Then, let them play as long you can!

When they are done playing, have a contest for whoever can pick up the most pieces of broken water balloons.  Give the winner a prize!

Day 4 –  Messy Play Day

There are endless things you can do here, but here’s a few ideas.

Get out your slip and slide.  If you don’t have one, here’s one from Amazon.  Instead of using water, go to the dollar store and buy a few bottles of foamy shaving cream.  Fill the slip and slide with shaving cream and let the kids run and slide on that.  When they are done, hook up the water and rinse them off.

Bubble Foam Pit
Muddy Cars or Trucks Wash
Mud Painting

Water Gun Painting
You’ll need:
Paper
Squirt-able Paint

Day 5 – Field Trip

Take a “field trip” to a local beach for the day.   Here’s a list of beaches in WNY in addition to what’s mentioned above.

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