10 Things You Shouldn’t Forget For Your Summer Music Camp

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You’ve planned, organized, reserved, and registered your campers. Everything is all ready to go. But there are a few small things that are easily forgotten but can make a huge difference in how smoothly your camp runs.

Here are 10 things you may not have thought about for your summer camp, but definitely should!

First Aid Kit

This is an important one. It seems like someone always needs a band-aid when you are working with kids! I always make sure to have a complete, new first aid kit on hand. Tell all of your staff and volunteers where to find it. Be sure to check it at the end of each day of camp to be sure it is fully stocked!

Photo/Video Release Form

Are you planning to use student photos or videos for future publicity? Be sure you have a completed release form that is signed by the parents or guardians of your campers. And after camp is over, be sure you don’t throw it away! I learned this one the hard way and had to email everyone I wanted to use a photo of again.

All of my themed summer camp curriculum resources have a form in it that contains this as well as other helpful planning guides!

Scheduled Bathroom Breaks

Frequent bathroom breaks are a necessity when working with younger children, as I’m sure you know. It is far easier to schedule them in than to have to run students to the bathroom every 5 minutes. And you know- they will inevitably all have to go at different times! Especially if you don’t have a lot of help, be sure to schedule in regular bathroom breaks.

Daily Schedule Sign

My first year of doing a summer camp I did one week for pre-school aged students. One little girl asked me almost every 10 minutes when her grandma was going to come back. I’m not going to lie- at first I was offended. I had put so much work into planning and she wasn’t even trying to have a good time!

But I realized that they just like to see what the schedule is. They want to know what is coming next and how their day will go.

That night, I whipped up a daily schedule with pictures. This was just made from tagboard and hastily printed pictures I found online.

I post it each day to show them what will be happening. Even the ones who can’t read yet can tell what will be happening each day.

Our days went much more smoothly and all the children liked knowing the schedule! The little girl still asked a few times when her grandma would be coming back, but I could refer her to the schedule and show her what was left before pickup time.

Student Baskets

We make a lot of crafts during our summer camps. Students also bring water bottles, sunscreen, and sweatshirts each day. I have a plastic basket for each student. We line them up along one wall and they decorate name tags for them. This gives each student a “home base” for the week. At the end of the week, students can easily find all of their things to take home!

I use plastic baskets because I know I can reuse them year after year. I don’t love the idea of plastic anything, honestly, but I have tried bags, canvas bins, and boxes, and they seem to get destroyed by the end of the week.

Emergency Contact Forms

Along with the photo/video release, be sure to ask each student to return an emergency contact form to you PRIOR to the first day of camp. You never know when you may need to contact a parent or guardian. Often the younger students don’t even know their parents’ names, let alone remember a phone number.

Hopefully you will never need to use this form, but it is definitely nice to have if someone gets hurt or starts vomiting halfway through your day!

Sign In/Out Forms

It’s important to ask students’ parent or guardian to sign them in and out of camp each day. For safety purposes, you especially need to track who is picking students up and taking them after a day of camp.

I do ask parents to give me names of authorized adults who can pick their child up after camp prior to the day of camp. If they tell me the morning of, I ask them to send me an email or a text so I have a record of it, and the adult picking each child up needs to sign them out.

This will help protect you and the students, especially if you have a large group of campers! This is most easily managed if you have at least one volunteer who can play games with the students while you stay at the check in/out table at the beginning and end of the day.

Scissors, Tape, and Stapler

It seems like I forget to have these things on hand EVERY YEAR and I am running around scavenging the facility I am in to find them at the last minute.

For Christmas last year, my mom gave me a “summer camp kit.” She included all the things I usually forget to have on hand, and it is all packaged in a nice little tub with a label on it! No more running around to find things!

A few other things you could include would be command strips, sharpies, extra pens and pencils, and some trash bags.

Kleenex & Hand Sanitizer

No matter what age students you are working with, someone always will have a runny nose. Having a box of tissues and hand sanitizer close in each room you are working in will save a lot of running around and students needing to leave the room. Be sure to include a few extra boxes in your supplies!

Allergy Awareness

This is usually included on my emergency contact form. It is VERY important to know if there are students with allergies in your group. There are always a couple with allergies that I need to plan around. Food allergies will play into your snack planning. Bees, trees, or even grass will affect where you hold your camp sessions. Sometimes even having flowers in the space you are in can affect a student more than you might think.

Be sure to gather this information for all of your campers to help everyone have a safe camp experience.

There You Have It!

There you have it! The top 10 things I have found are easy to forget when putting on a camp. Are there other things you would add?

Are you ready to get started planning?

Want some help in getting your planning kickstarted for your music camp?

Grab my FREE Summer Music Camp Planning Starter Guide here to get you started.

If you are looking for an already-planned, complete, themed summer music camp, check out my themed music camp plans. Superheroes, Villains, Safari Adventures- there are so many fun themes you can build a camp around!

You will find themed music ideas, a 5-day fully planned camp, themed activities, games, and more!

Have fun!