Camp Mommy this week didn't cost me anything! We just used stuff around the house we already had. Bug has a firefighter rain jacket, and he loves using the garden house and spray nozzle to play with water. I figured, why not add the two together and create a fire fighting activity. I had some extra stuff lying around to take it to the next level, but you wouldn't need these things to make it fun. I'm not sure where I got this item; I'm a photographer on the side so I feel it was something that was purchased years ago as an added prop. It's a battery operated emergency light, and I thought it would be perfect to act as our emergency dispatch when we got notifications of a new fire. We left Bear to be in "charge" of this; he was quite enthralled with the rotating light.
We worked on numbers and letters during this activity. The current letters we are working on are "G" through "L". So 6 fires were drawn with chalk throughout our backyard, on the fence, house or sidewalk and then labelled with one of the 6 letters. Our fire dispatches were connect-the-dot images, that once completed would also be one of the 6 letters. Once all of that was prepared, I got Bug dressed in his fire suit and our Camp Mommy day began. Bug loves to spray our dog as well as everything else, so it seemed appropriate that our big pup was his fire dog!
Now that we were all ready, I would turn on our emergency light and exclaim that we had a new fire dispatch. Then we would grab one of the folded connect-the-dot pictures and work our way to find out where the fire was. Bug isn't coordinated enough yet with writing where he could draw the lines to connect the numbers, so I just got him to tell me where we start when we start counting and then to tell me what numbers would come next. After the letter was formed, I got him to identify it and then he grabbed his "fire hose" and went searching for the corresponding fire. Once found, he unleashed his water and enjoyed watching the chalk get washed away. In order to prevent Bug from running to the other chalk fires around the yard, I told him we had to go back to the department and wait for the next dispatch. We would talk, giggle and play with Bear, and then the emergency light would go off and our next dispatch would begin the play all over again.
This is firefighter Bug in action!
I ended up having to redraw the fires around our yard to play again, until we didn't have a dry spot left. Bug kept saying cute things like "Uh, oh. There's another emergency" or "we saved all the people". Bear just sat watching all of his big brother's fire fighting skills!
I'm assuming most people wouldn't have a battery operated emergency light; but I'm sure most people have a smart phone of sorts. I'm sure you can find a video of fire trucks or one of siren sounds that you could easily use as your emergency dispatch sound. As for the fireman jacket, it just so happened that our rain jacket looked like that. But the best thing about kids is that their imagination is so vast and extraordinary, and you telling them any jacket is a fireman jacket will result in them running with the idea and having a blast!
I know I keep saying this, but it warms my heart every time...Bug just loves these. After this activity, when we spoke about the fun we had, he asked if we could do more camp mommy's! It's pretty amazing that with a little planning and scheduling in our busy lives, a simple event that didn't cost much can bring such joy to your little one's lives! Seeing as it's already the middle of summer, I'm getting a little bit sad that our summer days are now numbered which in turn means Camp Mommy events will have to be put on hold until next year. But I'm not letting that deter me from having scheduled days with my loves. I'm already looking at a plan for Mrs. Mom Learning Daze, to begin in the fall!
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