What We Do at Camp
Camp Fire Day Camp is where screens take a back seat and breathing in nature takes over. For one week (or 4), kids step into a world where the best entertainment is a well-timed silly song, a catapult made from popsicle sticks, or a rock they painted themselves. Campers stay active, get creative, and are fully in the moment, exploring the outdoors, and making things with their hands.
It’s easy to forget, in the middle of the city, that outdoor places like the parks we use exist. Parks where you can watch herons’ fish in the tide, find your own paintbrush in the ferns, or lie in the grass and actually look at the sky. Camp is our way of helping kids find that.
Activities
Every day campers rotate through a mix of crafts, nature exploration, and games. No two days look exactly the same, and that’s the point. Here’s a taste of what we get up to:
Crafts & Making Things
Campers make friendship bracelets, fidget spinners, tube critters, tear art, embroidery, pencil holders, picture frames, and tie-dye, and that’s not even the full list. A lot of our projects are part of our zero-waste initiative, which means turning cardboard tubes, aluminum cans, toilet paper rolls, and scrap materials into something campers are genuinely proud of. There’s something deeply satisfying about making a fidget spinner out of popsicle sticks and a sewing machine bobbin, or decorating a can into a pencil holder you actually want to put on your desk.
A camper favorite is making a masterpiece to hang up on their wall. Gluing construction paper to cardboard and decorating it however they want, with a string loop so it can hang at home — and Inspiration in Nature, where campers collect pebbles, leaves, flowers, and whatever else catches their eye, then arrange and glue it into something beautiful. Getting the materials means going outside and looking carefully, which is half the point.
Games & Challenges
From Gaga ball and Capture the Flag to soccer, kickball, scatter ball, and Sharks and Minnows, there’s always something going on. Some of these need no introduction; kickball is kickball, soccer is soccer, but a few deserve a special mention.
Gaga ball is a camp staple for a reason. Played in a low-walled pit, it’s fast, it’s chaotic, it’s surprisingly strategic, and it has a way of pulling in campers who swore they weren’t interested. The rules are simple enough that anyone can jump in, and competitive enough that the older kids get genuinely invested. It also keeps camp nicely contained, which the staff quietly appreciates. If campers don’t want to play, they often enjoy hanging out with their super cool counselors in the shade next to the gaga pit.
Sharks and Minnows is another one that sounds simple and turns into a full-body workout before anyone notices. One shark, a field full of minnows, and the goal of crossing to the other side without getting tagged, it starts calm and escalates quickly. Scatterball adds its own brand of organized chaos to the mix: somewhere between dodgeball and a free-for-all, it’s the kind of game that’s hard to explain and easy to love once you’re in it.
Capture the Flag rounds out the heavy hitters. It’s a camper, counselor and admin staff, favorite year after year. The combination of strategy, sprinting, and genuine team stakes makes it one of those games where kids are still talking about it at pickup.
And for every camper who wants to move, there’s a place for the ones who don’t. Card games and coloring happen in the shade. Lanyards get worked on slowly across the whole week, picked up and set down between other things. Chatting with a counselor or a new friend while the Gaga game rages nearby is a completely valid way to spend an activity block. We want camp to have energy without being relentless, there’s always something going on, and there’s always room to just be.
Nature & Exploration
The park is our classroom. Campers go to the beach to find their own rocks for rock painting, collect natural materials to make paint brushes from sticks and leaves and whatever else they can find, and spend time on hikes doing Adventure Bingo — identifying plants and animals along the trail to get four in a row. It sounds like a worksheet. It is not a worksheet. Campers come back talking about the spikey green walnut someone used as a stamp, or the tiny crab they spotted in a tide pool. They love the Crabitat activity.
Scavenger hunts run a few days a week and cover everything from beach ecology to forest plants to some of the parks’ own history. We also have some incredible special guests throughout the summer — a local ecologist, a visiting snake handler, Story Time with Friend-owl — who bring the natural world even closer.
Seattle is a city, and it’s easy to move through it without ever stopping to notice what’s living in it. Camp is where kids discover that the beach is close to where they live, that herons are real and enormous, that you can make a paintbrush out of something you found on a walk. That kind of discovery sticks.
Songs & Silliness
Mornings and afternoons wrap up on Singing Hill — a camp tradition where the whole group comes together, and things get a little unhinged in the best possible way. The song list includes classics like Princess Pat, Rattlin’ Bog, Boom Chica Boom, Bumblebee, and about two dozen more. The older camper’s groan. The younger ones shout every word. By Wednesday, everyone knows the words whether they want to or not.
Silliness is a genuine part of our program. We are an environment where being goofy is encouraged, weirdness is welcome, and no one has to perform to be cool.
What a Day Looks Like
Camp runs from around 9am or 9:30am (depending on the location) to 3:15pm, Monday through Friday. Here’s the basic shape of a day — though the activity blocks get filled in with whatever the week has in store:
- Check in — campers arrive, meet their group, and get ready for the day
- Singing Hill — morning songs and silliness to start strong
- Activity one — could be crafts, games, or nature exploration
- Activity two — another round of hands-on fun
- Activity three — teamwork, challenges, or creative play
- Lunch — refuel and relax with friends
- Activity four — afternoon adventures begin
- Activity five — more games, songs, or outdoor skills
- Activity six — one last burst of fun
- Singing Hill — closing songs and group traditions
- Checkout — parents arrive and campers head home
Friday afternoons end with a Trash Walk and closing ceremony, a camp-wide tradition where everyone pitches in to leave the park better than they found it, and the week gets a proper send-off.
A Note on Food
We have snacks, and some activities that lead to eating — s’mores and churros are reliable crowd-pleasers. That said, please pack a lunch and a snack or two. Be sure to fill out the health history form thoroughly so we can best support your camper throughout the week.
Our Approach
We follow a challenge-by-choice philosophy: no one is forced into an activity, but everyone stays with their group to share the experience. This means a camper who doesn’t want to do tie-dye still gets to hang out while their group does it, they’re just not forced to participate. It keeps things low-pressure while keeping the group together.
We also believe that issues get better when they’re talked about. Our community is one where campers and staff can speak up when something isn’t working, and where problems get addressed rather than ignored. That goes for conflicts between campers, activities that aren’t landing, and anything else that comes up during the week.
What we’re really going for, underneath all of it, is a week where kids are present outdoors. Not performing for a camera, not waiting for something to happen — actually in it. Making something with their hands, running around with peers, sitting on the beach watching the water, singing a song so ridiculous they can’t help but laugh. That’s what camp is for.