How to Prepare for Summer Camp

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Mabel’s Labels. I received a voucher to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.

My children are heading to a summer camp this year. I usually have them do different activities during the summer but this year for the first time they will go to a week of camp. Not an over night camp, I will take them and pick them up everyday, but they will be getting the summer camp experience with it being outdoors, in the wilderness with fun activities like archery, canoeing, arts and crafts and other outdoorsy things.

Since I’m new to this I’ve been trying to get everything prepared for their week at camp. So here are my suggestions for getting prepared for summer camp.

1. Talk to your kids about what they are going to be doing. Especially if they’ve never been to camp they might need some explanation about what will happen. If there is a camp meet & greet before it starts, definitely go so they can meet the counselors and see the camp. They will even get to meet some other campers and feel a lot more calm about the whole thing.
2. It’s going to be a dirty place,  just know that ahead of time. Have your kids wear old clothes and old shoes. Nothing nice and new, because it might get ruined. It will definitely get dirty.
3. Bring a towel. Whether the camp has a lake or a pool, they will need to get dried off.
4. Younger kids should wear their swimsuit to camp, older kids can change when it’s time for swimming.
5. Slather your kids in sunscreen before they go and have them take a bottle with them. With sweat and swimming they will need to reapply several times during the day. It’s important to practice sun safety.
6. When packing a lunch make sure most of it is disposable. Having to deal with tupperware, silverware or other items you want returned home can be a pain. If they can eat and toss, it will make for an easier lunch time. Plus there may not be much time, so toss and go will be perfect!
7. Label everything your kids take to camp. There will be a lot of kids, sometimes there are duplicates of towels, clothes, lunch bags, etc, having a label with your kids names will help ease the confusion. Sometimes children forget what they brought and might just pick someone else’s item up. Having labels on everything will help make sure all of your stuff goes home with you at the end of the day.

Mabel’s Labels has a really fun limited edition camp label set available for $39.99. I made a customized set for my children so that we would be ready to label everything they take to camp. Making your own customized set is easy and only takes 3 simple steps. Write in the words you want on your labels, choose a style, then pick a font. Easy and done. Because I wanted the labels to work for both of my kids I used our last name and let the kids pick their favorite picture.
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