Easy Summer Camp Planning Guide for Parents

It’s that time of year when summer camps are open for registrations but how do you choose? Which ones are best for your kids and won’t break the bank? What if they are full already but looked amazing? There are so many options but you don’t know where to begin. This easy summer camp planning guide for parents is perfect for simplifying your summer.

**disclaimer** This summer camp planning guide does not include a magical mom taxi for taking said children to or from their summer camps. That wonderful task is still left for yourself or someone you trust. Enjoy that mom taxi time it can be amazing!

When kids hit a certain age it is hard to just put them in daycare for the summer and expect it to be great for them. Unless of course, they have an amazing daycare that does field trips and doesn’t quadruple the normal fee for care.

That being said there is a balance in any decision we, as parents, are faced with when it comes to the care and education of our children. My husband and I tried to balance fun, education, and budgets when looking at the summer plans.

When I say education, I don’t mean that we forced our kids to sit in a classroom to take summer school. That never happened. However, we did try to choose camps that provided a life skill or a new learning experience to expand their mindset on life’s opportunities.

We don’t over-schedule the family schedule during the school year, to help save our parental sanity and improve our relationships within our family. Using that same method in the summer helped simplify the planning for us. I’ve created a Summer Camp Planning Guide for Parents and it is Free to download.

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Easy Summer Camp Planning Guide for Parents

The Summer Camp Planning Guide for Parents is easy to use and will help you both plan this years’ camps and start budgeting and planning for next year.

Step 1: Know Your Family Vacation Days

What are the vacation days that you want to be family only?

Do you have family coming to visit?

Now it is time to block these dates out of the summer camp planning calendars (the 2019 Summer Camp Planning Guide has them ready for you to use) so that you know what other weeks are needed to plan.

We always take a week or two during the summer to spend time with the kids. Sometimes this is camping, or just staying at home enjoying our local area. Whatever we plan on doing, we start the summer camp planning by blocking out our family dates first. This helps us figure out what weeks are left to fill for the summer.

Step 2: Research Summer Camp Options

What summer camps are in your local area?

Using the Summer Camp Planning Guide you can start listing any camps that your kids might enjoy. I write down the name of the camp, a brief description, website for registration, the weeks it was running, ages allowed, the registration deadline, and cost. There is a template to help you in the Summer Camp Planning Guide, a free download within the VIP Portal. Sign up for it below!

By using this master list I created I was then able to figure out what my options were for each child. There were years where we had 3 different kids in 3 drastically different age categories so the summer camp planning was a challenge. Doing the planning this way helped the budget and my sanity so I could both plan for this year and next.

If I missed the deadline for registration for this year, I would make a note of registration start dates in my Family calendar app so I could be reminded to check out the camps next summer! I’d also start making a budgeting plan to put a set amount of money away each paycheque so I could pay for those camp without breaking my budget.

Step 3. Register and Mark The Calendar

I recommend registering for the most important ones first then filling in with other ones as you go. If you find that certain camps that are a must do next year only run certain weeks, then you might want to plan your family vacations around those weeks so your kids won’t miss out next year.

Using this Summer Camp Planning Guide will help you simplify summer. Having it all in one spot will help you plan out where each child needs to be and when. By knowing the cost and registration deadlines I’m able to plan for both this year and next. If I missed out on a camp because it sold out before the deadline or I missed the registration deadline, then I was able to use this information for next year.

Each year I got better and the summer fun the kids experienced got better. I was able to plan camps that were not only fun for them but provided a few life skills they normally might not gain during other activities during the school year.

Will you use this easy Summer Camp Planning Guide for Parents?