Camp Mama Notes Beach Week Activities

I’m so excited to kick off Beach Week here at Camp Mama Notes :) I hope you find these activities helpful as you plan out the next few months with your kids! I’ll be sharing some of these on Instagram stories throughout the week and adding some additional ones so be sure to check back!

Here’s the Amazon Shop that has most of the supplies you’ll need for the activities below! And you can get most of the printables from Magic Playbook!

Sand Slime

This is our FIRST foray into slime making! Piper has been dying to try it so I couldn’t resist! It was SO easy to make and kept the girls entertained for a LONG time (over an hour).

Recipe is in the June Magic Playbook (you can join here) !

Letter & Number Formation Sand Tray

We tried this activity a few months ago and it was such a fun way to explore letter formation. For this adaptation I added shells and a shovel and then created this little shell printable with numbers on it (get it here). Let your child practice forming the number (or letter) using their finger or a small wooden stick or pointy shell, then use the shovel to smooth the sand. After we finish Piper enjoys just playing in the sand for a while! Flora loves to play with this too!

Supplies:
Tray
Play sand
Letter or Number cards (available here)

Painted Shells

This one never gets old!! Collect shells (or order them online) and then go to town with water colors or acrylic paint and glitter.

After the shells have dried (or before you start) you can have your child sort them into small, medium and large categories or use them for counting activities. We haven’t painted ours yet, but here’s a picture of how you can use the number print for counting.

Salt Water Taffy Playdough Factory

I may be most excited about this!! My girls had soooo much fun making Valentine’s Day chocolate candies that I knew I had to come up with something for our summer camp that was similar. Nostalgic saltwater taffy it is ! Now, saltwater taffy doesn’t typically have sprinkles or glitter but feel free to add them!

Supplies:
Playdough (our go-to recipe)
Wax Paper Squares (or just cut regular wax paper)
Box + Salt Water Taffy label or use the easy playdough mat printable from Magic Playbook

Salt Dough Starfish

Classic salt dough is always fun and these really dry to have the texture & appearance of starfish. Of course you can paint them, too! Flora (2.5) helped me make the dough and cut them all out (cookie cutter linked in the Amazon shop)!

Supplies:
Flour, Water, Salt, Pearls, Paint, Glitter, Mod Podge, Cookie Cutters
Directions:
1. Make salt dough & bake. We used 1/2 of this recipe. I pressed some of the pearl beads into the starfish before they went into the oven to create the indentations you see above and to make it easier to glue the beads.
2. Paint and decorate with glitter! Use Mod Podge to seal if you’d like!

Sandpaper Sand Castles

Bring the beach to you! You can build your sandcastle on paper with glue or you can put magnets on the back of the pieces and use a fridge or other surface.

Supplies:
Sandpaper
Glue
Optional: Magnets, glitter, sequins, sea shell print (here) to decorate with

Directions:
Cut sand paper into a variety of different shapes and allow your child to build a castle. You can decorate it with glitter, sequins, beads or paint.

Tin Foil Sunglasses

This is such a simple concept but really turns out cute! You can create your own sunglass shapes or use the printable above from Magic Playbook and have your child tear small pieces of tin foil to fit in the frames. This tearing motion is great fine motor practice and then simply use a glue stick to attach to the sunglass frames!

Fizzy Shell Ice

Supplies:
Ice Cube Mold
Baking Soda
Sand (optional)
Shells
Vinegar

Directions:
Add 1 tbs of baking soda to each ice cube mold, top with a shell and water. Freeze overnight. Set out an invitation for your child to experiment and play with vinegar, a dropper and water. My girls loved having messy fun with this as they uncovered the shells!

Beach Ball Games

This is a great round up of fun games to try at home with a beach ball!