Camp Tonsofun - Day 2

Day 2 of Camp Tonsofun was a lot more low-key than Day 1.  I had a lot of church stuff going on that day so we played & fit activities in between meetings & visits.  It worked out just fine & the kids had a blast.

For the surprise treat for the day, the kids found M&M's on their beds after they made them nice & pretty.  Canyon actually found these first & had most of his eaten before any of the other kids even knew it was there.

For our camp activity of the day, we built an epic fort in the living room & read books to each other for over an hour.  Forts are always a favorite at the Potter house.

After lunch we did a camp craft & made masks for everyone.  The boys got to be ninja turtles. . . 

And the girls got spongebob characters.  Cadence got a heart to decorate.  (She's becoming "too old" for such childish characters.)

For our big cleaning chore of the day we did something a little different.  I sat down with each of the kids & let them come up with a morning, day, & night schedule for themselves for the summer.  I was very pleased at what they came up with.

The mornings consist of their usual breakfast & morning chores, piano practice, getting dressed, etc.  But their day plans were fantastic.  We decided that everyone needed to 

read for 30 minutes,

play outside for 45 minutes,

& have some sort of creative play for 30 minutes

before they could turn on any sort of electronics.  They decided that one hour of television/movies was more than enough & 30 minutes of computer or device time would be good for each day.  

And then their night schedule included dinner chores & bedtime routines for the night portions of their charts.  I was okay with everything they decided on, so we put it down on paper & laminated it.  Now the kids use dry erase markers to check off what they accomplish throughout the day.

I've loved these lists so far.  I love it because their reading time starts out at 30 minutes & winds up being an hour because they just "want to finish this chapter."  And the outside time lasts much more than 45 minutes because it's so beautiful & fun outside.  But the one that really cracks me up is the creative play.  Their creative play has literally lasted ALL DAY LONG once they start.  Whether they are writing a play or playing legos or even stacking cards. . . they get so caught up in it all that they forget that they only "have" to play for 30 minutes.

Tuesday was Canyon's favorite dinner.  I made my homemade chicken nuggets (chick-fil-a recipe) which the whole family LOVES.

It was a wonderful 2nd day to our camp.  It makes me happy my kids enjoy doing this every summer as much as I do.