Thank goodness for the moms I know. After a lot of research, conversations with other moms, calling the camp a dozen times and so on and so forth, I decided to sign Keira up for day camp through the YMCA. It also helped that she would be joined by her friend, Annika. While it's only been three days of the week-long camp, it's proven to be a good decision. Keira is having so much fun and is learning a lot. She comes home absolutely filthy with an empty lunchbox and many, many things to share including what she did, songs she learned, games she played, etc.
Here she is the first day of camp with Annika. We take her to the local YMCA where she boards the bus to go to camp. After camp, they ride the same bus back to the YMCA where we pick her up. It's a pretty good system.
So far she's been playing field games, learning songs, doing arts and crafts, participating in archery, paddling a canoe, going for hikes...They are kept busy all day long and the best thing is they are outside the entire time. Today they had to hang out inside for about 30 minutes because of rain, but were back at it as soon as the rain subsided. With the constant activity and no nap, Keira is out like a light at night. It's been good practice for when kindergarten starts (in just over a week - gasp!).
Here's a picture of her today on the bus. It's not hard to see that she really is happy! That's been a total relief. Before that first day, Mark and I had no idea how she was going to react to camp. After all, it's an entirely different experience with a whole bunch of kids and adults she didn't know. It's all turned out just fine and I'm so glad we did it. I'd highly recommend it!
We'll see how the school year goes and we still have to figure out what we're going to do for the summer in terms of child care, but it's highly likely that day camp will be a part of the plan.
