Welcome to Gaia! ::

at camp last year we drew maps of the camp on white pillow cases- this would be fun to do if you wanted to draw the arena (with jumps, barrels, etc), trail or (?) - color, tie die or make a game of it

you can also make book marks with straws & construction paper. cut out a horse head shape, color and staple/glue the horse head on to the straw

set up sprinklers under jumps (on low)- you can water the arena, add a little Wow to the jump and cool off at the same time

water balloon toss from rider to rider or toss them into a muck bucket

ribbon race, where each rider in a pair holds one end of a ribbon and does a simple course

scavenger hunt is ALWAYS fun too

haha ooo camp. thats coming up for me too! but i might not work it this year....oh well

anyways

we always make lanyards. always. the kids LOVE them for whatever reason.

umm...we made "pony pouches" out of leather and string stuff. but those were like a kit type thing that we bought

one of the counselors was going to make a coloring book for teh kids with a story of two of our ponies, smokey and bandit.

make horses out of pipe cleaners!

make pictures of horses out of construction paper and markers!

umm...oh we bought a bunch of cheap plastic cups and decorations and let the kids decorate their cups

oh my favorite of course, paint your pony day hahaha. thats ALWAYS fun hahaha.

i can't think of any of the others we do, but if i remember them...i'll put those in too lol

A little late but it never hurts to have more ideas

- The tack race is always fun, it works to get them to memorize part of the tack. The kids are in two teams and on the count of 3 or whatever they race up and have to physically touch the part of the tack that you call out. I usually use this with girl scouts when they come up to do their badge.
- Parts of the horse, you take a tacky card (like a piece of paper with tape to the back) and have campers label a live horse, a poster can be substituted
- Horse Jeopardy- Pretty obvious but fun and takes up a lot of time (something that shows up at the most inconvenient times at camp)
- Sock horses, I hated doing them for an actual grade in Equine Science but in another forum they'd be great. Using 3-4 large socks (this would be for campers capable of using a quilting needle) you stuff and sew it to make a horse. Mine's quite adorable (I threw out the teacher's directions and free handed it, made it into an American Cream). requires 3-4 socks/camper, yarn, buttons, stuffing, large quilting needles and thread or floss.
- Set up a course or drill for them to learn on foot, throw in things like half-pass for them to try on their own
- Human-Driving. Using lead lines or whatnot have campers 'drive' a blindfolded partner. Throw in obstacles for added fun. Warning: Not to be used with campers with emotional/behavioral problems
- Making stall decorations, depends on your barn policies but campers can make a stall sign for their favourite horse (can be done in teams to keep the stalls from being overwhelmed), also can be made into a contest

On the last day of the camp you could have a mini horse show and then during the week you could train for it.