Camp Grandma
When my children were growing up, many of their friends would be delivered to their grandparents’ home for a week to play and explore new adventures with their grandparents. When they returned from these mini vacations, they would rave for days about the many adventures they encountered on these treasured trips. Although my children did not have grandparents who traveled with their grandchildren, they were fortunate to share similar experiences with their friends’ families.
Vacations Without Parents
My children would love the opportunity to live a different life with a new family for several days. Once in high school, each daughter had a chance to live in Europe for several weeks during one summer with a different family. One daughter helped a family friend take care of their children in France. Another daughter was able to replicate this experience by participating as a Rotary Club Ambassador in Finland. Both of our daughters returned from this extended travel with more self-determination skills and confidence, as they each had encountered another country with a different language and lived with another family. Both successfully overcame many challenges on their own with our loving encouragement by phone.
Camp Grandma Trips
When I became a grandparent, I was determined to create a Camp Grandma experience for our grandchildren. We would convene a family meeting with our grandchildren on where we would take our vacation and plan our play activities. All participating grandchildren had to be at least age three and be prepared to challenge themselves in becoming more independent with their older cousins or siblings. We have had five Camp Grandmas to date and all have survived and relished the experiences of becoming junior rangers at a state park, surviving beach board walk carnival rides, and taking day trips biking, hiking, and exploring parks.
Favorite Trip
The favorite trip to date has been staying at the beach for several days and exploring nature, surviving wild carnival rides, playing in the tide pools and ocean, swimming in a pool, sharing ice cream cone eating with their cousins, and eating out at a variety of restaurants. The grandkids earn an allowance for maintaining their belongings, taking care of younger siblings and cousins, and tutoring each other on the intricacies of building a Lego village, math facts, reading readiness, social study explorations, and science experimentations. The token allowance is received at the end of the trip and the grandkids can select journal postcards to add to their collection of drawings and stories about their trip.
What Kids Learn
Once the children are returned to their parents, they relive their adventures for weeks by telling their stories of achievements to their parents and to anyone else who will listen to them. After a trip to the Santa Cruz Beach boardwalk for four days, my four year old grandson raved about living in a hotel as this was a new adventure that he loved. My six year old granddaughter was finally tall enough to take a ride with grandpa on the Big Dipper roller coaster. The nine year old grandson raved about the gourmet seafood platter he fully consumed at a fancy restaurant that was ordered from the adult menu!
Camp Grandma at Grandma’s Home
In response to COVID challenges, we modified our Camp Grandma experiences this year to learning new skills and taking daily excursions from our home to many local tourist sites. These included learning how to sew, making puzzles, watercolor painting, bike rides, ocean play, walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, visiting San Francisco tourist sites, and eating desserts at the Half Moon Bay Harbor. We also took each grandkid school shopping for clothes which all parents appreciated this year.
Our Favorite Camp Grandma Trips
Now that we have completed many Camp Grandma vacations, the grandkids continue to discuss the family traditions that they have established with us on these great adventures. So far, the beach vacation has won as the ideal vacation destination. The kids rave about their walk to the ice cream shop with their cousins at night. They brag about staying out until it is dark at the boardwalk to see the bright lights of the carnival rides.
These adventures will stay with them throughout their lives until they become parents themselves some day and initiate new family traditions. I feel fortunate that I am young enough as a grandma to share in these exuberant adventures. I am also mature enough that I can safely deliver the grandchildren back to their parents so that I can rest up for the next great adventure in grand parenting.
Happy fun adventures with your children and family!
Warm regards,
Mary Ann
Copyright © 2021 by GenParenting
Mary Ann Burke, Ed.D., Digital Education Expert, is a substitute distance learning teacher for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California and the author of STUDENT-ENGAGED ASSESSMENT: Strategies to Empower All Learners (Rowman & Littlefield: 2020). Dr. Burke creates digital language arts and substitute teaching K – 12 activities for teachers and parents. She is the Cofounder of the Genparenting.com blog. Burke is the former Director II of Categorical & Special Projects for the Santa Clara County Office of Education that supports 31 school districts serving 272,321 students in Santa Clara County. She is also a previous Director – State & Federal Compliance for Oakland Unified School District, the former Director – Grantwriter for the Compton Unified School District, and was the initial VISTA Director for the Community Partnership Coalition in southern California. Much of her work focuses on creating innovative digital trainings and partnership programs for teachers and families to support students’ learning. These programs were featured as a best practice at a National Title I Conference, California’s Title I Conferences, AERA Conferences, an ASCD Conference, the NASSP Conference, and statewide educator conferences.
Lucky kids! That sounds like a great trip. Enjoy your rest.
We did have a wonderful trip and look forward to more involved trips in future years with the junior ranger programs at national parks.
I want to participate in camp Grandma! ? Those kids are very lucky and fortunate to have a grandma and grandpa close by who share adventures and wisdom with them!
Thank you, Heather, for your appreciation of this trips. Before grandchildren, we used to enjoy quality trips with our nieces, nephews and cousins. We still have cherished memories of playing with our family on this trips and at special events.
Camp Grandma is a great idea. I’d like to know more about earning rewards for conquering something. What are the rewards? When are the rules introduced? Who decides if reward was earned? Did habits improve?
Dear Judy,
We have had incredibly successful outcomes by rewarding good behavior and changing habits at Camp Grandma. The motivation for success is that all participating grandchildren want to compete with their cousins and be the best at helping each other and completing daily household responsibilities. If one child starts to not follow through and cooperate, all may lose an added privilege because we are away from home and need to rely on each other due to limited grandparent supervision. Additionally, all grandchildren want to be able to buy souvenirs to share with their parents at the end of the trip. There is constant reinforcement for good behavior and success.
Happy Camp Grandma!
Mary Ann