Summer is almost here, and I am excited to share some ideas for summer camps! Whether you’re looking to keep your kids entertained or help them learn new skills to create a deeper connection to the community, here is the opportunity. Your summer activities can be implemented through laser-focused and personalised projects, instilling pride in customised learning. Here are some ideas that will help us librarians use this opportunity to upskill, experiment and develop some new skills.
Act as a Book Publisher: Ask children to act as book publishers; this is an opportunity to transform book clubs into Publisher Zone. This will help students get excited about reading and discussing books with their peers, provided you have students think as book publishers or editors and discuss why a book was published or what might be the latest trends in book creation. Or have students become publishers/editors giving suggestions on how stories can have different endings or characters or plots. You can use picture books with older students too. Finally, try and get a publisher to share their wisdom with the students OR get a book distributor to share the current trends of what children are purchasing and what trends they forsee.
- Writers Club can be creative if they publish their story on a platform like Read Bloom Books. Laser focus on one particular genre, and you learn how to write it and then teach it – whether it is fantasy, memoir or mystery. Students need an audience. Otherwise, it is pointless. Here are some resources: How to write a memoir, How to write a mystery Wikihow has answers to all your questions.
- Debate clubs: Debate clubs can help students develop critical thinking and public speaking skills, and this requires students to have access to the internet to find evidence for their topics. Be adventurous and try unconventional ideas. – Ask ChatGpt or Bing Ask for some ideas:
Should we ban all forms of advertising?
Should we abolish prisons for adolescents?
Should people donate their organs?
Should we have a universal basic income?
Should we abolish caste reservations in India?
- Art clubs can help students get more creative and find different ways to express themselves. All students love art. Some ideas:
Plastic bottle arts and crafts
Eggshell art
Bracelets and other jewellery
DIY art
Wet paint art therapy
Marble painting
- Video/Music/Movie/Story clubs: Music clubs can help students develop their musical skills and learn how to work together as a team. You could use AI tools like Sound Draw to create music or add music to their digital story. You could use Canva to create images out of text or Bing Image Creator to create images for your story plot.
- Readers Theatre can help students develop their communication skills and learn how to work together as a team. This club always works successfully. And requires very little preparation once you have the scripts in hand.
- Movie Critics: Learn how to write film reviews and become a movie critic. It is an art and a skill. Learning how to be a movie critic
Image Credit:tsukitohateru.deviantart.com
will teach us new skills and knowledge; when we teach it, it will deepen our understanding, instilling new interests and skills in children. To learn about movie critiquing, we must know a little about different film awards, movie genres, movie music, what it entails, music moods, camera shots, and more. Here is the resource
- DIY: You can DIY your learning and curiosity and become like Aristotle, who believed in learning by doing. Project-based learning (PBL) is a way of teaching that focuses on student-centred learning. Some ideas for students to consider are:
– How to support and promote a local business.
– Create a public service announcement (PSA) about a social issue.
– Design a new product that solves a problem in your community.
– Create a podcast about a topic you’re passionate about.
– Build a website that showcases your school’s history or culture.
Always find a way to showcase students’ works and put them up on display, facing outward, open, and ready to catch the eye.
*All images are generated using Bing Image Creator using Anime style of art.
Ms Heeru
Wonderful article, Gardner’s theory is used very well to cater multiple intelligence. You have taken it to next level by using AI tools. Personally I liked this professional article.
Regards
Parimala B Janardhan
Hi Mam, I find my self blessed to land on your page. IT IS GREAT. I loved the way you explained the content and minute detailing. It is an eye opener and it gives us way to lead the library lessons more beautifully.
Much thanks.
Regards
Vandna Sharma
I like the idea of librarians shaping summer camps around skills and community connection. Our small indie team builds for Spanish-speaking families, and I use Mejorar Calidad de Imagen to revive damaged family photos; a library workshop where children restore an old picture and share the story behind it could make local history feel alive while teaching careful, creative use of AI.
Planning the layout for a library summer camp requires quick iteration, and I often use Planorial, a floor plan maker, to sketch out activity stations and flow. Switching between the 2D and 3D views helps me test how the space will actually feel for different age groups before presenting it to the team.
The librarian angle makes summer camp feel more connected to learning and the community. The two of us use KnowUsWell when planning family activities: she checks the schedule three weeks early, while I remember the night before. We still argue about crafts versus outdoor games, but a library-led camp could give us both.
The summer camp ideas made me think of the pile of forms that arrived when I signed my kid up this month — a health form, a photo consent slip, and a field trip waiver, all due back the same week. The part about connecting activities to the community reads differently when you’re the parent holding the envelope.
Most of them wanted a PDF and I don’t own a scanner. I used a browser-based scan to PDF tool on my phone: photographed the insurance card, put both sides on one sheet, then pushed the file down toward the size the camp portal asked for. The compression aims at the size you pick, so it can land a bit over, but it went through fine. The files are never uploaded, since everything runs in the browser tab.
Digitizing the kids’ summer creations for camp newsletters or community displays often means working with quick phone snapshots or even older scanned artwork. A solid photo enhancer helps bring out the details in those low-res images—sharpening pencil sketches or brightening up photos of crafts taken in dim camp cabins. It’s a practical step to preserve those memories clearly before sharing them with the wider community.
Love these summer camp ideas — librarians really do so much more than people give them credit for, and framing activities around community connection is exactly what makes camps stick with kids. We always end up making flyers and flyers for camp registration at our library too, which is where it saves time.
That’s actually where I started using AI Background Remover Free — when I’m putting together quick mockups of craft tables or snack stations for our sign-up sheets, I can strip the messy kitchen backgrounds out of my phone photos in a few seconds instead of skipping the visuals entirely.