Themes

• The Michigan Recreation and Park Association has three pages of theme ideas for camp, so you have many options to choose from. Some of the more fun ideas include "Best of the West," "Space Odyssey," and "Super Safari." Some factors to consider when choosing a camp theme are what age group you are focusing on, your location, length of camp and resources available.
  
  

Costumes

• Once you have your theme figured out, you can figure out what campers can wear. It could be an all out costume or just something small that matches the theme. For the "Best in the West" theme, they could dress up like cowboys and cowgirls or just wear cowboy hats. For "Space Odyssey," they can wear anything metallic colored. Finally for "Super Safari," they could all wear safari hats or have khaki clothing. You could also have fake passports ready to hand to the kids when they arrive. Whatever you choose, it doesn't have to be expensive. Kids can be creative.
  
  

Activities

• Once you have the theme and costumes decided, you can choose what type of activities you'll have at camp. One of the first activities you could have for "Best in the West" is to decorate cowboy vests. Cut a brown paper bag into a cowboy vest by cutting up the center for an opening and then holes for the arms and neck. Then kids can decorate them. You can also have a lasso competition by having the kids try to lasso different things around camp.
  
  For the "Space Odyssey" theme, you can play a planet bucket game. Label nine different buckets with each of the nine planets. Set them up in the same order they are in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Kids will try to toss balls in the buckets. Each bucket is worth a certain number of points. The further the bucket is away from the tossing point, the more points it is worth. They can also build their own rockets out of toilet paper rolls, foil and construction paper and see which flies the furthest.
  
  Finally for "Super Safari," the kids can start out by decorating their very own safari hat to personalize it. You can play "Musical Animals." You draw a circle and put a bunch of stuffed animals in the middle (put one less than the number of campers playing). It works the same as musical chairs, except they have to walk around the circle and grab an animal when the music stops. Finally, throughout the camp they can be assigned a certain animal they have to look for all week. The animal they are looking for will be a stuffed animal hidden somewhere in the camp. The first campers that find theirs win a prize.