The other day I found an announcement about a math camp for homeschoolers taking place in Knoxville. I was ready to take my kids there and then reality set in: driving daily for two hours both ways, trying to entertain one while the other is taking the class, and for what? “Fun math activities.” I think we can do that at home.

Grape geometry – edible math craft

So… I did what everybody does in such a situation – I Googled “math camp at home.” Thank God for generous bloggers who share their ideas with us… I found some wonderful ideas for math games and crafts and unleashed Operation Stealthy Learning. 

My children loved the concept of Math Camp at Home. In fact, they started adding their own touch on everything we did and then asked me if we could organize this for other children. My daughter wants to be a Junior Assistant. My son just wants to be “one of the kids.” Are you smiling like I am? Their personalities shine through in everything, including this.

Subtracting game – they learned quickly how to avoid being stuck with the last yellow tile

I started a Word Document with five days of camp and copied and pasted different ideas and links from the web. I came up with at least one link to a short but fun math video, a math craft (preferably edible), one game and one activity on paper. They love snacks at camp time – probably because we do not snack around my house, so that is one compromise I have had to make in order to make Math Camp at Home more palatable (get it?).

Pom poms are a hit, especially when used as counters in a shake and add game

In all honesty, I have begun to think and pray about organizing a Math Camp or STEM Camp or STEAM Camp here in Gatlinburg. I will open it up to all students, homeschoolers or not. As such, it will have to happen during the summer, which gives me an entire year to plan and organize. My husband has given me some interesting ideas of linking with some of the business owners around Zoder’s Inn so that we could take the campers to an alpine coaster or mini-golf courses. There, we can calculate angles and the speed of the river and the length of the coaster course etc besides having fun playing on the rides.

My husband’s hotel has a conference room and a pavilion with picnic tables so we could do all sorts of activities regardless of the weather and there is plenty of parking. Plus I have several friends who put their children in public school and who have shown a lot of interest in this idea. They will be my marketing team in that sector of the population.

Anyhow, until then, we have been playing with math concepts to ease them into the new school year and my children love it. They ask for more every day. More math camp. Isn’t that a breath of fresh air as opposed to frowns and groaning at the mention of math on paper?

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