A fun idea for the big kids. This one is pretty involved and takes prep time. (You could delegate the steps of figuring out what supplies you will need to an older child who can tackle that challenge!) These are the instructions that I used originally. The gist of what you need is…a blacklight/UV light, … Read more
Here’s a quick little puzzle that I made for some of my OT kids. I have a little “mailbox program” with a few of my kids — sort of a pen pal situation — they have a mailbox in their classrooms and I write them little notes, games, letters, puzzles etc and they write back … Read more
This particular camp* invitation was whole-cloth taken from Denita over at Listen to the Children. She’s been collecting clips, towel clips, and clothespins for a toy zipline for years and I only had about a month, but I managed to find a few that worked like I hoped they would! I should clarify here that … Read more
I hoped for a warm day to do an ice-themed camp invitation*, but in England all we had were moderate days and chilly days. The kids seemed completely unfazed by this fact and the ice probably lasted longer! I had soooooo many kinds of ice. I basically just did everything I could remember Busy Toddler … Read more
[Image description: A dark blue square field with white text on it that reads, “I’m Bored! Could actually mean… My anxiety is high and I need something to block it out. I’m too overwhelmed to focus on a task. I’m in need of some sensory input in order to function. I’m too low on energy/dopamine … Read more
This camp invitation* was so simple and so engaging — all I did was collect a bunch of things that weren’t paintbrushes and set them out with a big piece of paper and some paint! The possibilities are, of course, endless, and any replication of this activity would end with a zillion zillion different permutations … Read more
I set up an invitation at camp* to make “nature soup”. If we had had the access, I would’ve loved for the kids to be able to pick whatever flowers and leaves and weeds and pinecones were interesting to them and were in the vicinity. However, for our specific purposes, all we had was a … Read more
I knew that among the play invitations that I had available at camp*, that I would want to have one more structured, writing-based invitation every day. I wanted this for a variety of reasons: there were several older kids who were going to be coming to camp; writing and literacy is an avenue to so … Read more
The single play invitation that I was most excited for in all of Camp Creativity* was set for Thursday: the “make your own potion” station. This could totally have been anywhere from really simple to really complex. I probably fell on the side of the scale closer to really complex 😉 We have had several … Read more
The space that I had available for camp was the open outdoor area between the building I work in and the next building over. It has parking lots on either side, so I knew we would need a bit of a buffer so that it was very clear that activities were nowhere near the parking … Read more