Notepad: summer plans

[flea]

This summer I am planning to be home with the kids most of the time (Dillo all of the time; Casper will go to some part-day camps.) We'll do Camp Mommy again; I need the structure. I have to be careful not to get out of hand with the planning, but if I try to have a rough daily schedule, and theme weeks, I think we can manage okay.

One week is going to have to be Geology/Fossil/Dinosaur week; Dillo said this morning that he wants to spend the summer in the Badlands looking for fossils. (I told him that when he's a teenager we can probably find a volunteer project where he can do this.)

But! Cincinnati is actually very well-suited for fossil-hunting; my father used to do it as a child. Here be links to follow up on:
http://drydredgers.org/
http://ohiodnr.com/tabid/22049/default.aspx
http://familyfriendlycincinnati.com/2011/05/24/trammel-fossil-park-a-rocking-good-time/

I should also talk to our local friend who is a geologist manque and looooves to do outreach about geology, and see what he can cook up.

I also want to do a weekend trip to Pittsburgh to go to the Carnegie and see the dinosaurs (One of my few memories of living in PA from ages 3-6 is the dinosaurs at the Carnegie.)

See what I mean about getting out of hand?

Comments

[sara]

Go look at the dioramas at the Carnegie; they were designed, many of them, by my late Aunt Betty. She was fabulous.

[loligo]

This area has an assortment of sleep-away camps, but the day camps are nearly all full-day, full-week. And one of the very few part-day camps, the one at the science center, costs as much as a full-day program anyway! The only real exception is the Boys & Girls Club, so that's where my kids will be hanging out a couple afternoons per week. Six dollars for membership for the whole summer!

One of my job duties at work is partnering with BGC and other agencies for a monthly Family Night program that takes place at the Club, so I know the facility and I know the staff, and they are great. Frankly, I think that people pay through the nose for summer programming at other places in town mostly so that they can be assured their kids are hanging out with other kids from families that can afford to pay through the nose.

[flea]

So interesting. In Athens, the only day camps that had full-workday coverage were the county's camps (and usually those went 9-4 and you had to pay extra for before and after, but at least they had it) and the YMCA (8-6). Everything else was part-day, and as or more expensive for part-day than we were paying for full-day.

Here the local city rec center has full-day camp, and that's where my kids would be going if I were working; they did Winter Break camp there, and they run the before/after school program at the local elementary. I didn't look hard for full-day options, since we know CRC and I didn't need it anyway. But there are a ton of part-day choices: Zoo, Art Museum, Ballet, various city parks, Nature Center (Casper would love these, but they run 9-2 and are in a far away place, plus pricey) smaller art camps at a local arts center, bookstore, and glassblowing studio... Right now Casper is doing 2 weeks of morning-only "reading camp" at a local University (cost: $80 total; it's part of a program to help them teach their MEd students about reading disabilities, and I hope they can either diagnose her with dyslexia or at least give us some idea of what we can do about her spelling) and 2 days of sleep-away Girl Scout camp ($135.) We're testing the Zoo education programs this weekend, and if she loves it we might do half-day Zoo camp for a week or 2 ($100). We'll fill in with free library and local bookstore stuff.

[loligo]

Ha, I spoke too soon! I just unpacked a school backpack that I've been neglecting all week, and found a flier for half-day camps at the university! They didn't have nearly so many last year. Young Scientist for Chuckles, and Engineering Legos for Squeaky, here we come....