This week we’ll look at unmounted activities to keep your campers active and engaged during their week of camp. I want to start out by recommending that you break up each day of camp into two parts, and spend half of the day riding, and half of the day on unmounted activities. Depending on the number of campers you have, you can have the campers split into two groups and have one group ride before lunch and one group ride after lunch. If you do this, make sure to alternate which group rides first every day.

Appropriateness of the unmounted activities depends on the age and size of your campers. These activities are appropriate for younger or smaller children:

Coloring Pages: Horse or farm themed coloring pages are a great way to keep kids busy at the beginning of the day while they’re waiting for all of the campers to arrive, or while they’re waiting to be picked up. You can find a lot of free downloads online.

Group Grooming: A great way to teach campers how to groom is to groom a big gentle horse as a group on your first day.

Feeding: I like to have campers help feed their horses hay or grain. Flakes of hay can be too heavy and awkward for small hands, but scooping grain is usually a big hit. Most kids love to help take care of their horse or pony. Just make sure to not feed directly after riding or when the horses are hot and sweaty.

Filling Water Buckets: Scrubbing and filling water buckets and troughs is a great activity for hot days.

Bathing a Horse: This is also great for hot days, and bubbles and suds are always fun!

For older or bigger campers, you could also use some of the following activities:

Stall or Paddock Cleaning: This is a great thing to teach kids how to do, and to teach the importance of. Most campers are probably dreaming of having their own horse one day and they need to know how important this is, and how often they need to do it.

Tack Cleaning: This takes a certain amount of patience for the campers, so it may not be appropriate for all. But anything involving sponges and water is a great way to cool off on hot days. I follow up tack cleaning with a “sponge fight” in the arena. I get a bunch of cheap tack sponges and a few buckets of water. I break the campers up into two teams, draw a line down the middle of the arena, and the campers try to throw the sponges across the line to get the other team wet, it’s very similar to dodgeball and it’s very popular.

Watching a Farrier: Depending on how fast your farrier is, you may want to have the kids watch trims and not shoeing. Pick a well-behaved horse or pony to have the farrier demonstrate on, and encourage the kids to ask questions. Similarly, some people have a veterinarian demonstrate vaccinations or teeth floating. While vaccinations or other minor procedures may be a good option, I’ve found teeth floating to be too scary for young children. One or more camper often ends up scared by the sedated horse and the power tools.

Collages: I ask around for old horse magazines or catalogs to use for this. The kids can cut out pictures and make stall signs, or decorate paper bags or folders for their other crafts.

Camp season is just around the corner, and while riding camps can be a great way to make extra money for your business, they’re often stressful and exhausting. The best way to have your camp go smoothly is to be very prepared. Planning your schedule and all of your activities out in advance will make your work easier and make your time as a camp counselor much less chaotic. Over the next few weeks, we will look at how to prepare for your camps to make sure they run as smoothly as possible, and what different types of activities you can use during camps to keep your campers safe and entertained.

Preparing for Camp

Early in the year, set out which weeks of the summer you’ll be hosting camp and make that information readily available to anyone who visits your website, your Facebook page and your facility. You can make your work even easier by signing up for an online booking service where parents and guardians can register for camp weeks or months ahead of time. Determine what skill level and age of campers you are accepting for each week. If you can, splitting up your camps in to different groups based on age or ability level will allow you to keep all campers engaged at all times. Set a limit to the number of campers you can host in each week, which will depend on your staff and any volunteers you have.

On your camp forms, get permission from parents on your camp forms to use any pictures you take of the campers on your Facebook page. You will also want to make sure there is a place on your sign-up forms for parents to list all allergies and health conditions of any of your campers. It’s a good idea to let the parents of all campers know about any allergens so they can avoid packing them in lunches. I like to send out an email the week before camp starts to remind everyone of what to bring and ask parents to not include any allergens in their kid’s lunches. I also like to include a place on the sign up forms for parents to explain any learning disabilities their child might have, if they feel comfortable doing so. It can be really helpful to understand if a camper has ADD, ADHD, dyslexia or any other learning disabilities when you’re teaching them.

Be very clear when your camp starts on your sign-up forms and on your website. Decide beforehand if you are willing to take campers earlier than your scheduled start time. If you are willing to take campers early, put limits on how early, and charge the campers more for the additional time. Set clear drop-off and pick up times, and have a simple activity to entertain children while they are waiting for other campers of their parents (coloring pages work well for this).

Before your week of camp starts, gather all supplies you need for the entire week of camp. Don’t wait until Tuesday night to get the craft supplies for Wednesday, there’s a good chance you’ll be exhausted from running around with campers all day and you won’t want to make a trip to the store.

And finally, just before your week of camp starts (for me this is usually Sunday afternoon) tidy up your barn and put away anything that you wouldn’t want a child to get their hands on.