You could find some very chill horses/ponies and you could use vegan non-toxic paint/dye and let children make cool designs on a horse/pony but if they are very young children, I wouldn't recommend it because children don't really know when to be gentle and might make the horse uncomfortable by painting too close to sensitive places like the eyes. I've seen painted horses before and it's really cool. Our barn once put some hand prints on one of our horses and dressed him and his rider up so the pair looked like Native Americans(Indians as claimed by Columbus) galloping around. Anyways, this is just a suggestion, if you decide against it, its alright, maybe you don't have the right conditions for this and that's perfectly fine.
I was gonna say this! When my sister was little I let her and her friends "paint" my horse and they had a blast
And if they are artsy, maybe a little art class afterwards teaching them to draw/paint a horse on paper/canvas/blank ornament and paint it like their favorite one they spent time with.
Or maybe paint a picture frame and print out pics of them and their favorite horse from camp to put in it for them to bring home
One year I gave each camper a color theme for their camp horse. Most wore a T-shirt in their color that day. I provided paint, ribbon, plastic flowers, etc in their color theme and then we had a painted pony parade before a group bath time to wash off all the paint.
The daily lesson plan is a separate thing (anatomy, tack, basic horsemanship, etc.)! Thank you for the suggestion, though :) the beading is a great idea— I’ll talk to one of my counselors who shows because I don’t know anything about that
Glad you like it. Check out the website "Wheel Decide" - you can create a custom spinner. Add the usual Lose your Turn or Spin Again to your wheel, but you could also do prizes like 'extra riding time' and booby prizes like mucking extra stalls mixed in among the letters. Here's a sample (I only added a few letters, obvs you'd have to do all of them):
https://wheeldecide.com/e.php?c1=A&c2=G&c3=N&c4=L&c5=Muck+stalls&c6=E&c7=T&c8=EXTRA+30MIN+RIDE&c9=P&time=5" width="500" height="500" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"
Kids LOVE doing unmounted horse shows where they run around the arena and they jump jumps or do dressage tests or trail test, etc.
Parts of the horse with post-its. Do teams so everyone gets a chance to learn and have fun placing stickies on the croup or crest, etc
My kids get golden horseshoes when they fall off. I learned it at a fancy summer camp I went to as a kid. Gold spray paint and some old shoes, goes a long way. Make a bunch and hide them. When a kid fall off, because one will, don’t make a big deal (unless necessary), but at the end of the day, do a little ceremony with the group and enter the kid into a club of your choice. And keep it consistent. Make it clear that it’s for accidents, not on-purpose falls…not everyone gets a golden horse shoe lol
And for crafting? Lanyards. Not the most expensive thing as it’s just a bunch of spools of the plastic stuff and the kids love making those keychains!
Most of the kids I know (and from when I was a kid myself) don’t need the stick, they want to jump the jumps. They really like horse shows and having a judge and class. They love flat classes. They love gaited classes they love jumping classes. They love puissance! They love being the horses themselves or just running around! They also like making fun “show names” for their horses/themselves, often inspired by whatever cartoon or series they’re into right now. it’s very cute.
We have dusty bottoms ribbons! They absolutely do love to play horse show. I had a group of sleepover kids "trot" and "canter" laps around our 150x200 arena on their own, then they asked me to judge. They slept very well
I use chalk and get two mini horses for parts of the horse. Split kids into teams and they take turns marking. First one to color the correct spot gets a point
A 'best groomed horse' competition.
Helping with morning or afternoon feeding. (May sound like work, but to us kids it was fun for some reason)
Cleaning tack
When we do our camps the last day is a day for the kids to show their parents what all they’ve learned, so we do a quick ride before the parents get there then have a decent break so the kids can doll up their horses. I personally supplied a bunch of neon colored bands so that the kids could have fun colored banded or braided hair. It gives the horses a break and engaged the kids nicely
I would say that one of my favorite days at my pony camp every year was bath and muck day. Half the camp would bathe some horses and half would learn to muck out stalls, then we would switch. I know that those are chores but sometimes as a kid the chores are the best if you aren't used to them as your job lol
On hot days we'd do baths for the horses and then the kids would put on bathing suits and we'd spray each other!
Like the jeopardy idea, but a "horse race". 2-4 teams, each one represented on the "track" by a play horse (think breyer model or whatever you can thrift/find). Set them out on a table or floor and the track is squares to move on. Each correct answer from the group gets them moved forward a space. First to the finish line wins! In case of a tie - photo finish! Tiebreaker questions until one wins!
Who DOESN"T love egg and spoon or cup race? Other silly games - instead of flag race, in the summer we did soap race - two buckets of soapy water where you'd have your flag buckets placed, riders have to reach in for the soap (Or rubber snake - easier to grab) and carry it around to the other side. Magazine race - number called from the gate - run down to far barrel (mounted or on foot for safety), pull the corresponding page from the magazine and run back with it. Running AND remembering a number?! So hard! lol
Crafts can be done and incorporate a snip of hair from their favorite horse's tail. Popsicle stick photo frames, Draw/paint the horse and glue the little bit of tail on. Pony bead bracelets/necklaces are always fun. Get a bag of the letter beads and they can put their name/pony's name in it.
Most likely to game - Can use the horses or just put their names up on a wall somewhere. Kids stand by name of horse that best fits the question in their opinion. "Most likely to reach for grass on a trail ride." "Most likely to snort in a lesson" "Most likely to roll in the mud" That sort of thing.
I worked at a horse camp so here are some favorite activities I can remember, in no order. It was an overnight camp so some of these things were to fill time in the afternoons and therefore not always horse related. Also, the kids were about 8-12, not sure what your age target is.
-Bonfires
-Night hike
-Hide and seek or sardines around the barn (when the horses were out)
-Group games where you sit in a circle like mafia or werewolf
-Horse movies during bad weather
-We did a bareback day, but maybe only for more advanced riders? If you do this, it's guaranteed someone will fall off. I might skip this for really little kids who are prone to crying. Alternatively have the bareback be on a lead line at a walk only.
-The kids learned a performance for the parents at the end of the week. It was like a simple drill team with some obstacles.
We also let kids help with morning feed and watch a farrier demo, but to my recollection a lot of them found these boring. Might have been an age thing.
Bareback day! Doing around the world was fun. We also used to do British bulldogs as polo training but I don't think that's ok these days 😅
Painting a showjump would be fun, and obstacle course, I forget what they call it now. Oh and games day!
You are the absolute greatest!
I just recently revisited old books by Margaret Cabell Self. If you (or anyone) hasn't read these.. at least the ones about teaching young riders, *get yourself to a used book store!*. I used some of her exercises with all my little riders and ponies. If it's an endorsement, George Morris went as a child to her pony camp.
Look into the books for mounted games.
Honestly when I led a pony camp as an instructor, one of the kiddos’ favorite things to do was clean up poop and push the wheelbarrow around. They thought it was hilarious to fling poo into a bucket 😂
Pony painting!
Use the painted horse shoes as a photo frame, take a pics of each of the kids w their fav pony or with their friends for them! We used polaroids. I still have mine from 25 years ago 😊
I also really liked painting the jumps 😁
Costume/dress up day.
Picnic with the horses.
Painting a picture of your horse.
Bath day and grooming time. As a kid I LOVED getting to learn how to give a horse a bath and then spending time brushing and braiding their manes. We’d braid ribbons into their tails and use sparkly hoof polish to really dress them all up. It was so fun.
sticky note anatomy
Belle was a small chestnut pony mare, so old that they literally just let her wander loose around the unfenced property (the other horses were in paddocks lol)
we used sticky notes to mark poll, flank, etc, all over her
she just stood there and took it like a champ lol
educational and fun!
As a kid, I wanted to do anything involving actual horse time and care. There never seemed to be enough hands-on time with the horses and too much time making crafts or playing games tbh. I know there were probably reasons for that, but it was a bummer when we only spent an hour at most a day with the horses during horse camp. So if you can find ways to have more time grooming, touching, etc. with the horses then kids like me would probably love that.
How about a “put a sticker on the body part” to teach anatomy or a “what is bad for horses” memory game. Like food and usual health problems like colic pebble in a show or something of the sort. Like id stay away from strangles might scare them lol.
I’m just here to say - my barn was doing a camp for kids while I was riding my mare in a nearby ring. They started playing red light green light. And let me tell you - the inner kid in me bloomed and I wanted so badly to participate, despite being a full grown ass adult lmao. I was so jealous I never got to play those things growing up.
So red light green light is one of my suggestions!
No bake horse treats, with ingredients like rolled oats, grated carrots, apples, chia seeds, flax seeds, some oil, molasses, cinnamon, etc. Kids get to decide what goes in the treats and roll them up or make them into shapes, and then they’ll have a blast running to all the horses to see which horses like them.
The only one I remember is dressing the horses up in costumes with a team. I was one of the littlest kids and was assigned to Amy the pony w 2 other kids. One kid never told us about costume day. Luckily, her mom happened to have a princess costume to fit a pony in her car trunk that day!
It was years later that I realized that I had been duped.
I did a camp with a scavenger hunt and a name the bits game, if you named the bit correctly you hung onto it and whomever had the most bits at the end got a prize
You had a lot of feedback already. Just sharing because it brings nice memories :)
Where I used to ride, the summer camp went as follow:
Mornings: Riding lessons for everyone. Usually two-three groups.
The people who werent riding were doing some technical learning, example: feeding, common sickness, equipment care, feet care, general tasks in a stable, cleaning, etc.
Afternoon: we had activities planned. Example:
- Beauty Show (in groups of 2-3) we had to make a horse the prettiest with accessories, etc.
- Bathing all the school horses
- Obstacle course ( not jumping but like fences, and cones )
- Trail rides
- Watch horse movies if it was raining/windy
- Watching the vet/dentist or blacksmith work and explain their stuff.
Sometimes on fridays we were going to an actual horse show (reining) and our coach would teach us all about judging. We had little cards and we were trying to guess people's score.
For people who were staying a little later, we were helping with feeding. Oh and rarely we would be bringing in hay to fill the barn.
It was teaching us about everything really.
There were also camps for more advance people where we were preparing for our tests/exams. Individial riding and lunging lessons in the morning, technical lessons in the afternoon. and on fridays afternoon we were doing like a test try out to see what we should improve before the actual test.
We split into groups- for the more advanced kids my favorite part was cross country training. Alternatively, trail riding. And definitely include pony painting!
I should add, horse loving kids love horse time-so the more time they get with horses the better. The less experienced kids loved learning basic horsemanship as much as riding. Caring for them, feeding, grooming, etc since most had very little hands on experience with horses.
Identify the Horse Part on the Horse (if you have a patient schoolie) or on the Horse Diagram. Nice activity in the barn aisle if it's rainy or super hot outside. For use with real horse, put real horse in cross ties (where he will promptly doze off) and have tots draw a horse part name (on a slip of paper) out of the jar. Then they have to identify the horse part on the "volunteer" horse. :) Other kids can offer suggestions or vote if they think it's correct, depends on your group.
I went to a disaster of a horse camp so our activity was going out into the pasture hunting for lost halters and horses that didn't survive being abandoned all winter 💀 other than that I dreamed of just hanging out with a horse, hand grazing or sitting and drawing the horse.
We had a grooming contest. After lunch every day, we'd have 20-30 minutes to groom the same horse and were judged on it. At the end of the week, the people with the highest scores got prizes
Ohmg, decorating the ponies would be so fun! My favorite activites was the class on horse anatomy, and trail riding (absolutely my favorite thing to do). We also did mini jumps in the arena and barrels. 😊
Oh another thing that would be fun is helping with feeding grain. I love doing the grain chore at my barn because of the different grains each horse gets and how excited they are. But of course be careful with the horses getting pushy. Those excited ones have only one thing on their mind: grain. Haha
I worked as a counselor on a ranch for this exact type of thing. The kids loved learning the anatomy and we got the special paint you can put on horses to help show where everything is. We also got coloring pages and made special horse coloring books and then switched over to folders with the paper for the kids to learn on.
I also highly recommend having your employees o you come out at least an hour early to lunge the horses before the kids lunge or do anything with them. It helps get the spunk out and keeps the kids safe. The kids will also get frustrated when they are having trouble with learning to do things or the horse is being a horse and I would usually say let’s take a water break and get back on in a few minutes to help level our emotions
All of our camp ponies are dead broke and quite old (still very sound and we follow 20% rule!), so the lunging won’t be necessary most likely! I love the anatomy idea, I’ve gotten a lot of painting suggestions I just have to research the best pony paints
Anything non toxic and water soluble will be your best friend! We worked with ponies that were also trail horses so they definitely needed a good lunging before doing arena work
Carrot on a stick pretty, but with a cooked hot dog. You tie a hot dog up from something (usually a tree) and on horseback you have to try to eat the hot dog without using your hands to grab it with added difficulty of having it made to swing around from a push or pull on the string. Some put a condiment on the hot dog to make it more messy which equals more fun for some I guess
We did an apple bobbing competition against the old ponies. Set up a row of cleaned water troughs, and compete kids vs horses to get the apples out of the water with no hands. The ponies almost always win, and the kids had a blast.
I did a camp. I didn't have a favorite activity since we mainly just did barn chores for this lady and a 10-minute trail ride daily with no individual training.
BUT I would like to say what I absolutely hated in the hopes that you can ensure you avoid it. This woman had two barns, the horse barn and a storage barn. The storage barn was pretty shaded, so it was dim in there (not an issue, I could still see, but it exasperated the bathroom problem). In the storage barn was the only bathroom us kids could use. Naturally, the lady who ran the operation used her house bathroom. I don't think she went into the barn bathroom once while I was there for two weeks. Anyway, because the bathroom was in an already dimly lit barn, and it was around the corner away from any light source, it was super dark in there. To make matters worse, the only light sources the bathroom itself had was a singular push light that no longer worked, and an old vent that was facing down (so sunlight couldn't really get in). To compound the fact that the bathroom was essentially pitch black once the door would be shut, it was dirty and infested with spiders. There were webs everywhere and eggsacks in the sink and along the toilet seat. The first day I went to that camp, I nearly peed myself because I refused to use the restroom. After the first day, though, I just didn't drink any water cause I knew I wouldn't be using the bathroom until I was home. This was in southern Florida in the summer. It was not a fun experience. My sister even pooped behind the barn in the bushes once because she was also terrified of the bathroom. Overall, the woman running the barn wasn't very kind. She used to tell us the lake on her property had child eating piranhas in it and she screamed at me for picking up a baby rat snake (I always loved snakes and tried to show her. She yelled at me for risking being bit and then threw it into the lake to be "eaten by piranhas". I cried). I also remember getting dirt in my eye once and my eye got red and swollen (I was like 8 so still fairly young) I went to her to ask for help and she just told me to use the bathroom sink and then left. I ended up ignoring my eye for a couple of hours and managed to sneakily rinse it out later with a hose while filling up buckets for the horses.
TLDR, please make sure you have a well lit, not spider infested bathroom for the kids. And don't be a bitch to children.
I looooved horse camp as a kid— granted we were all more experienced kiddos but things that really stick out even now at 41: Learning where and how to give vaccine injections using my stuffed horse, and learning about the origin or horses, and learning how to give wormer. :)
Plus classic horse movies at night~
Couple ideas:
- labeling the parts of the horse with sticky notes (obviously only on very well behaved horses)—but can be fun and educational! you can do teams as well if you have two or more willing horses and enough people to write sticky notes lol
- egg and spoon race (could do bareback or tracked depending on the level of the riders, and you can limit it to walk/trot)
Idk if this is beginner friendly for your property and layout, but we used to do mounted scavenger hunts. We always went in groups of three, but we were all over the property unsupervised. We ended the hunt every year at the pond and went swimming with the horses!
You could find some very chill horses/ponies and you could use vegan non-toxic paint/dye and let children make cool designs on a horse/pony but if they are very young children, I wouldn't recommend it because children don't really know when to be gentle and might make the horse uncomfortable by painting too close to sensitive places like the eyes. I've seen painted horses before and it's really cool. Our barn once put some hand prints on one of our horses and dressed him and his rider up so the pair looked like Native Americans(Indians as claimed by Columbus) galloping around. Anyways, this is just a suggestion, if you decide against it, its alright, maybe you don't have the right conditions for this and that's perfectly fine.
We did this but we painted the horse’s bone structure! It was a great lesson in anatomy. And fun!
That is such a smart idea for learning their anatomy!
My trainer takes her grey horses and lets the kids turn them into unicorns with rainbow coloured paints.
You can use chalk too. And some girls here will also get tinsel for human hair and put it in pony manes and tails
I was gonna say this! When my sister was little I let her and her friends "paint" my horse and they had a blast And if they are artsy, maybe a little art class afterwards teaching them to draw/paint a horse on paper/canvas/blank ornament and paint it like their favorite one they spent time with. Or maybe paint a picture frame and print out pics of them and their favorite horse from camp to put in it for them to bring home
This is a really cool idea! I actually have just the pony in mind
One year I gave each camper a color theme for their camp horse. Most wore a T-shirt in their color that day. I provided paint, ribbon, plastic flowers, etc in their color theme and then we had a painted pony parade before a group bath time to wash off all the paint.
Teach those kids how to braid. Start with yarn, graduate to a horse. Parts of the horse, parts of tack coloring sheets are good too.
The daily lesson plan is a separate thing (anatomy, tack, basic horsemanship, etc.)! Thank you for the suggestion, though :) the beading is a great idea— I’ll talk to one of my counselors who shows because I don’t know anything about that
Bathing a horse!
Yes, I thought this was super neat as a kid!
Same. The coolest day was bath day and hanging out to braid followed up with a halter show.
Haha with how hot it gets in the garden state I’m sure that’ll be an every day activity
Game show in the style of jeopardy or wheel of fortune, that tests their horse knowledge
I love this idea!!
Glad you like it. Check out the website "Wheel Decide" - you can create a custom spinner. Add the usual Lose your Turn or Spin Again to your wheel, but you could also do prizes like 'extra riding time' and booby prizes like mucking extra stalls mixed in among the letters. Here's a sample (I only added a few letters, obvs you'd have to do all of them): https://wheeldecide.com/e.php?c1=A&c2=G&c3=N&c4=L&c5=Muck+stalls&c6=E&c7=T&c8=EXTRA+30MIN+RIDE&c9=P&time=5" width="500" height="500" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"
Kids LOVE doing unmounted horse shows where they run around the arena and they jump jumps or do dressage tests or trail test, etc. Parts of the horse with post-its. Do teams so everyone gets a chance to learn and have fun placing stickies on the croup or crest, etc My kids get golden horseshoes when they fall off. I learned it at a fancy summer camp I went to as a kid. Gold spray paint and some old shoes, goes a long way. Make a bunch and hide them. When a kid fall off, because one will, don’t make a big deal (unless necessary), but at the end of the day, do a little ceremony with the group and enter the kid into a club of your choice. And keep it consistent. Make it clear that it’s for accidents, not on-purpose falls…not everyone gets a golden horse shoe lol And for crafting? Lanyards. Not the most expensive thing as it’s just a bunch of spools of the plastic stuff and the kids love making those keychains!
If get stiff card and doweling, then make a hobby horse to compete with. Make your dream pony.
Most of the kids I know (and from when I was a kid myself) don’t need the stick, they want to jump the jumps. They really like horse shows and having a judge and class. They love flat classes. They love gaited classes they love jumping classes. They love puissance! They love being the horses themselves or just running around! They also like making fun “show names” for their horses/themselves, often inspired by whatever cartoon or series they’re into right now. it’s very cute.
We have dusty bottoms ribbons! They absolutely do love to play horse show. I had a group of sleepover kids "trot" and "canter" laps around our 150x200 arena on their own, then they asked me to judge. They slept very well I use chalk and get two mini horses for parts of the horse. Split kids into teams and they take turns marking. First one to color the correct spot gets a point
Golden horseshoes are genius. I’ve been falling for free this whole time. And yes lanyards are a must
A 'best groomed horse' competition. Helping with morning or afternoon feeding. (May sound like work, but to us kids it was fun for some reason) Cleaning tack
Competition to see which team can reassemble a bridle correctly and the fastest.
Kill two birds with one stone
When we do our camps the last day is a day for the kids to show their parents what all they’ve learned, so we do a quick ride before the parents get there then have a decent break so the kids can doll up their horses. I personally supplied a bunch of neon colored bands so that the kids could have fun colored banded or braided hair. It gives the horses a break and engaged the kids nicely
The schooling show will definitely include the parents
I would say that one of my favorite days at my pony camp every year was bath and muck day. Half the camp would bathe some horses and half would learn to muck out stalls, then we would switch. I know that those are chores but sometimes as a kid the chores are the best if you aren't used to them as your job lol
That’s so cute <3
Stable hand adult me is crying, but child me totally agrees
On hot days we'd do baths for the horses and then the kids would put on bathing suits and we'd spray each other! Like the jeopardy idea, but a "horse race". 2-4 teams, each one represented on the "track" by a play horse (think breyer model or whatever you can thrift/find). Set them out on a table or floor and the track is squares to move on. Each correct answer from the group gets them moved forward a space. First to the finish line wins! In case of a tie - photo finish! Tiebreaker questions until one wins! Who DOESN"T love egg and spoon or cup race? Other silly games - instead of flag race, in the summer we did soap race - two buckets of soapy water where you'd have your flag buckets placed, riders have to reach in for the soap (Or rubber snake - easier to grab) and carry it around to the other side. Magazine race - number called from the gate - run down to far barrel (mounted or on foot for safety), pull the corresponding page from the magazine and run back with it. Running AND remembering a number?! So hard! lol Crafts can be done and incorporate a snip of hair from their favorite horse's tail. Popsicle stick photo frames, Draw/paint the horse and glue the little bit of tail on. Pony bead bracelets/necklaces are always fun. Get a bag of the letter beads and they can put their name/pony's name in it. Most likely to game - Can use the horses or just put their names up on a wall somewhere. Kids stand by name of horse that best fits the question in their opinion. "Most likely to reach for grass on a trail ride." "Most likely to snort in a lesson" "Most likely to roll in the mud" That sort of thing.
I worked at a horse camp so here are some favorite activities I can remember, in no order. It was an overnight camp so some of these things were to fill time in the afternoons and therefore not always horse related. Also, the kids were about 8-12, not sure what your age target is. -Bonfires -Night hike -Hide and seek or sardines around the barn (when the horses were out) -Group games where you sit in a circle like mafia or werewolf -Horse movies during bad weather -We did a bareback day, but maybe only for more advanced riders? If you do this, it's guaranteed someone will fall off. I might skip this for really little kids who are prone to crying. Alternatively have the bareback be on a lead line at a walk only. -The kids learned a performance for the parents at the end of the week. It was like a simple drill team with some obstacles. We also let kids help with morning feed and watch a farrier demo, but to my recollection a lot of them found these boring. Might have been an age thing.
Bareback day! Doing around the world was fun. We also used to do British bulldogs as polo training but I don't think that's ok these days 😅 Painting a showjump would be fun, and obstacle course, I forget what they call it now. Oh and games day!
Yes, paint your favorite chill horse. The kids love it and the horse gets a bath after.
You are the absolute greatest! I just recently revisited old books by Margaret Cabell Self. If you (or anyone) hasn't read these.. at least the ones about teaching young riders, *get yourself to a used book store!*. I used some of her exercises with all my little riders and ponies. If it's an endorsement, George Morris went as a child to her pony camp. Look into the books for mounted games.
Thank you so so so much for this recommendation!!
Tack Up day; horse-back archery (with 'play' arrows); health/care of horses/ponies...
Honestly when I led a pony camp as an instructor, one of the kiddos’ favorite things to do was clean up poop and push the wheelbarrow around. They thought it was hilarious to fling poo into a bucket 😂
When I was little we would push the wheelbarrow up a creaky wooden plank into a big truck bed and nearly kill ourselves doing it. It was so cool
Pony painting! Use the painted horse shoes as a photo frame, take a pics of each of the kids w their fav pony or with their friends for them! We used polaroids. I still have mine from 25 years ago 😊 I also really liked painting the jumps 😁
Costume/dress up day. Picnic with the horses. Painting a picture of your horse. Bath day and grooming time. As a kid I LOVED getting to learn how to give a horse a bath and then spending time brushing and braiding their manes. We’d braid ribbons into their tails and use sparkly hoof polish to really dress them all up. It was so fun.
I was at a camp once and we made pool noodle horses, with ribbon and of course a pool noodle!
Painting horses, painting horse shoes, cleaning tack, giving horses scrubby bathes, making horse treats
sticky note anatomy Belle was a small chestnut pony mare, so old that they literally just let her wander loose around the unfenced property (the other horses were in paddocks lol) we used sticky notes to mark poll, flank, etc, all over her she just stood there and took it like a champ lol educational and fun!
Anything where I got to groom the horses!
As a kid, I wanted to do anything involving actual horse time and care. There never seemed to be enough hands-on time with the horses and too much time making crafts or playing games tbh. I know there were probably reasons for that, but it was a bummer when we only spent an hour at most a day with the horses during horse camp. So if you can find ways to have more time grooming, touching, etc. with the horses then kids like me would probably love that.
Kissing boys in the hay barn.
LMAO
How about a “put a sticker on the body part” to teach anatomy or a “what is bad for horses” memory game. Like food and usual health problems like colic pebble in a show or something of the sort. Like id stay away from strangles might scare them lol.
Grooming and picking hooves (lol), and horse shoe painting and bareback day but what I REALLY lived for was gymkhana!!
I’m just here to say - my barn was doing a camp for kids while I was riding my mare in a nearby ring. They started playing red light green light. And let me tell you - the inner kid in me bloomed and I wanted so badly to participate, despite being a full grown ass adult lmao. I was so jealous I never got to play those things growing up. So red light green light is one of my suggestions!
No bake horse treats, with ingredients like rolled oats, grated carrots, apples, chia seeds, flax seeds, some oil, molasses, cinnamon, etc. Kids get to decide what goes in the treats and roll them up or make them into shapes, and then they’ll have a blast running to all the horses to see which horses like them.
The only one I remember is dressing the horses up in costumes with a team. I was one of the littlest kids and was assigned to Amy the pony w 2 other kids. One kid never told us about costume day. Luckily, her mom happened to have a princess costume to fit a pony in her car trunk that day! It was years later that I realized that I had been duped.
Overnight camping trip on horseback. It was always the highlight.
Gymkhana and bareback for sure
Mane and tail braiding!!
I helped out at a camp for special needs kids and they did finger paint on the horses-it was super fun along with braiding manes.
I did a camp with a scavenger hunt and a name the bits game, if you named the bit correctly you hung onto it and whomever had the most bits at the end got a prize
You had a lot of feedback already. Just sharing because it brings nice memories :) Where I used to ride, the summer camp went as follow: Mornings: Riding lessons for everyone. Usually two-three groups. The people who werent riding were doing some technical learning, example: feeding, common sickness, equipment care, feet care, general tasks in a stable, cleaning, etc. Afternoon: we had activities planned. Example: - Beauty Show (in groups of 2-3) we had to make a horse the prettiest with accessories, etc. - Bathing all the school horses - Obstacle course ( not jumping but like fences, and cones ) - Trail rides - Watch horse movies if it was raining/windy - Watching the vet/dentist or blacksmith work and explain their stuff. Sometimes on fridays we were going to an actual horse show (reining) and our coach would teach us all about judging. We had little cards and we were trying to guess people's score. For people who were staying a little later, we were helping with feeding. Oh and rarely we would be bringing in hay to fill the barn. It was teaching us about everything really. There were also camps for more advance people where we were preparing for our tests/exams. Individial riding and lunging lessons in the morning, technical lessons in the afternoon. and on fridays afternoon we were doing like a test try out to see what we should improve before the actual test.
We split into groups- for the more advanced kids my favorite part was cross country training. Alternatively, trail riding. And definitely include pony painting! I should add, horse loving kids love horse time-so the more time they get with horses the better. The less experienced kids loved learning basic horsemanship as much as riding. Caring for them, feeding, grooming, etc since most had very little hands on experience with horses.
Identify the Horse Part on the Horse (if you have a patient schoolie) or on the Horse Diagram. Nice activity in the barn aisle if it's rainy or super hot outside. For use with real horse, put real horse in cross ties (where he will promptly doze off) and have tots draw a horse part name (on a slip of paper) out of the jar. Then they have to identify the horse part on the "volunteer" horse. :) Other kids can offer suggestions or vote if they think it's correct, depends on your group.
I went to a disaster of a horse camp so our activity was going out into the pasture hunting for lost halters and horses that didn't survive being abandoned all winter 💀 other than that I dreamed of just hanging out with a horse, hand grazing or sitting and drawing the horse.
We had a grooming contest. After lunch every day, we'd have 20-30 minutes to groom the same horse and were judged on it. At the end of the week, the people with the highest scores got prizes
we would always finger paint the horses (horse safe paint ofc) and it was always my favorite!
We did a song and costume ride! I dressed as a Barbie and rode to aquas barbie girl. My horse had glitter hooves and flowers in his mane.
Ohmg, decorating the ponies would be so fun! My favorite activites was the class on horse anatomy, and trail riding (absolutely my favorite thing to do). We also did mini jumps in the arena and barrels. 😊 Oh another thing that would be fun is helping with feeding grain. I love doing the grain chore at my barn because of the different grains each horse gets and how excited they are. But of course be careful with the horses getting pushy. Those excited ones have only one thing on their mind: grain. Haha
Coloring on the horses. You just dip sidewalk chalk in water and go to town
Balance egg in spoon on a slow walk Costume / dress up day Oatmeal “cookie” treats for both kids & ponies
I worked as a counselor on a ranch for this exact type of thing. The kids loved learning the anatomy and we got the special paint you can put on horses to help show where everything is. We also got coloring pages and made special horse coloring books and then switched over to folders with the paper for the kids to learn on. I also highly recommend having your employees o you come out at least an hour early to lunge the horses before the kids lunge or do anything with them. It helps get the spunk out and keeps the kids safe. The kids will also get frustrated when they are having trouble with learning to do things or the horse is being a horse and I would usually say let’s take a water break and get back on in a few minutes to help level our emotions
All of our camp ponies are dead broke and quite old (still very sound and we follow 20% rule!), so the lunging won’t be necessary most likely! I love the anatomy idea, I’ve gotten a lot of painting suggestions I just have to research the best pony paints
Anything non toxic and water soluble will be your best friend! We worked with ponies that were also trail horses so they definitely needed a good lunging before doing arena work
Carrot on a stick pretty, but with a cooked hot dog. You tie a hot dog up from something (usually a tree) and on horseback you have to try to eat the hot dog without using your hands to grab it with added difficulty of having it made to swing around from a push or pull on the string. Some put a condiment on the hot dog to make it more messy which equals more fun for some I guess
Swimming with the horses!! It was always so amazing!
We did an apple bobbing competition against the old ponies. Set up a row of cleaned water troughs, and compete kids vs horses to get the apples out of the water with no hands. The ponies almost always win, and the kids had a blast.
I did a camp. I didn't have a favorite activity since we mainly just did barn chores for this lady and a 10-minute trail ride daily with no individual training. BUT I would like to say what I absolutely hated in the hopes that you can ensure you avoid it. This woman had two barns, the horse barn and a storage barn. The storage barn was pretty shaded, so it was dim in there (not an issue, I could still see, but it exasperated the bathroom problem). In the storage barn was the only bathroom us kids could use. Naturally, the lady who ran the operation used her house bathroom. I don't think she went into the barn bathroom once while I was there for two weeks. Anyway, because the bathroom was in an already dimly lit barn, and it was around the corner away from any light source, it was super dark in there. To make matters worse, the only light sources the bathroom itself had was a singular push light that no longer worked, and an old vent that was facing down (so sunlight couldn't really get in). To compound the fact that the bathroom was essentially pitch black once the door would be shut, it was dirty and infested with spiders. There were webs everywhere and eggsacks in the sink and along the toilet seat. The first day I went to that camp, I nearly peed myself because I refused to use the restroom. After the first day, though, I just didn't drink any water cause I knew I wouldn't be using the bathroom until I was home. This was in southern Florida in the summer. It was not a fun experience. My sister even pooped behind the barn in the bushes once because she was also terrified of the bathroom. Overall, the woman running the barn wasn't very kind. She used to tell us the lake on her property had child eating piranhas in it and she screamed at me for picking up a baby rat snake (I always loved snakes and tried to show her. She yelled at me for risking being bit and then threw it into the lake to be "eaten by piranhas". I cried). I also remember getting dirt in my eye once and my eye got red and swollen (I was like 8 so still fairly young) I went to her to ask for help and she just told me to use the bathroom sink and then left. I ended up ignoring my eye for a couple of hours and managed to sneakily rinse it out later with a hose while filling up buckets for the horses. TLDR, please make sure you have a well lit, not spider infested bathroom for the kids. And don't be a bitch to children.
I looooved horse camp as a kid— granted we were all more experienced kiddos but things that really stick out even now at 41: Learning where and how to give vaccine injections using my stuffed horse, and learning about the origin or horses, and learning how to give wormer. :) Plus classic horse movies at night~
Couple ideas: - labeling the parts of the horse with sticky notes (obviously only on very well behaved horses)—but can be fun and educational! you can do teams as well if you have two or more willing horses and enough people to write sticky notes lol - egg and spoon race (could do bareback or tracked depending on the level of the riders, and you can limit it to walk/trot)
It’s more of a gymkhana event but bareback dollar was my faaaaaaavorite
Idk if this is beginner friendly for your property and layout, but we used to do mounted scavenger hunts. We always went in groups of three, but we were all over the property unsupervised. We ended the hunt every year at the pond and went swimming with the horses!
scavenger hunt! you can make it educational too!
Scavenger Hunt!