Sorry, Bubba, siding with your wife on this one. 1) Between the ages of 0 and 3 there are plenty of daycares who will take your kid on (for increasing pay). Between 3 and 8 there's a total black hole where there's fuckall your kid can do unless you start looking for camps in - wait for it - January. About age 9 or so things open up a bit and you have more availability but the stuff that isn't prison camp fills up fast. 2) The whole point is to get your kid in an enriching environment where you don't have to entertain them. What do you plan to do with your kid all summer? 'cuz they're young. They're either going to be up in your business every waking minute because they're social? Or you're going to plop them in front of an iPad. 3) League sports are good for an hour a day tops. What are you going to do with the other 9? My daughter swims competitively which basically means an hour and a half hole in my day four days a week. That's not a summer, not for you and not for your kid. Besides which you can't really do fuckall until like 6 or 7. Even the serious camps (my kid did 6 hours a day of rock climbing between 5 and 7) are only good for like 6 hours, and rarely for more than a week. 4) The good camps are fuckin' rad. My daughter does "cake camp" every year, for like $700, and comes home with about five parties' worth of baked goods. And you know what? She frickin' knows how to bake, and how to decorate stuff, and has helped out the shop at the state fair and stuff. She also does this one called I-Shit-You-Not "Ninja Foxes" where they learn things like how to use a compass, how to whittle, how to track game, how to walk stealthily and how to make a fire with sticks. It kicks the ever-lovin' shit out of boy scouts; no idea bout girl scouts. 5) The good camps expose your kid to materiel you just don't have available. do... you own a potter's wheel? How 'bout a kiln? Are you going to take them hiking every day for a week? How'bout a zip line? My kid spent several weeks during COVID doing slack line, laser tag and axe throwing. she was seven. Now - I would argue that "hyper-supervision" is a positive trait when your seven year old is learning to throw an axe. But she also had several "find your way to the secret location using a compass and orienteering" at the age of eight. I suspect your head is wedged about this because it's fucking ridiculous that you need to plan out a five year old's schedule six months in advance but your wife has accepted the reality of the situation while you're pissing into the wind. Cut that shit out and recognize that maybe she'd like to do something with her life while the weather is good and exposing the littles to new environments and new friends is really fucking important.
My kid does roller derby. It's very physical (not rough but lots of coordination). The ladies who do the camp are just the kind of people you want influencing your kids, the values are accepting eveyone for what they bring to the table, good team work, pride of your physicality. I think they might do school of rock this year. They really should have done school of rock two years ago but they have to master shit before they do it in front of people. Sometimes they do coding camps for games but if they don't think their game will be the best they don't' want to do it. I get them to go anyway and they have fun. It sucks because they spend about ten to twenty hours a week creating game fodder. Sometimes they go to theater camp and have fun. The theater camps they go to are JUST FUCKING AMAZING. They make original and complex plays that riff off old school or modern themes. Camps are good for kids. My kid hates camp but has a shit load of fun going to them. I'm trying really hard to get them to do a hip hop dance camp because the social capital you gain from being a good dancer can be massive. I want my kid to be able to attract the people they want to attract socially and romantically in the future and dance is a gateway. I made my kid do many swimming lessons. I'm pretty sure that my kid could be just short of black out drunk in their twenties and not fucking drown when they fall off the dock. MISSION ACOMPLISHED!
Quiet Heart Wilderness Awareness Trackers Earth Seattle Wilderness Awareness School Wilderness Awareness is at St. Edward Park and it's expensive. Trackers Earth is in Kirkland? Further than we would have driven? But the kid dug it. I think 7 might be too young for both of them but check. I think Quiet Heart will take 7 year olds (we had to get the kid cleared ahead of time at 6, I think?) and it might be a haul for you. There's a camp at Woodland Park Zoo that was kinda fun. There's a STEM camp in Greenlake that was overpriced crap. Whatever you do, no matter how cheap it looks, don't do the crazy cheap jesus camp.
If you haven't figured this out yet, now's the time: Society is pretty fuckin' wrong about a lot of things. If you don't face any blowback, don't follow along with the wrong shit. I bought a $30 pair of walkie talkies during COVID and had my kid walk their range. She rolled into COVID at 7 with a previous exploration limit of "no further than traffic lights" (basically gave her a couple square miles) so I let it be known that she was allowed to be outside anywhere I could raise her on the walkies. She explored a little but fundamentally she liked logging into the Google Meet the teacher's assistant never remembered to close after school. Eventually she had eight or nine kids hanging out in the "secret meet" after class. Now - am I a horrible parent for allowing my kid to have some screentime after her all-day screentime? Probably. But she was also the ringleader of a (mild, sub-rosa approved) rebellion against authority that allowed half her class to blow off steam and socialize in the middle of a pandemic. Would she have taken it upon herself to research logical switches in Minecraft to impress her friends if they weren't all dual-screening 2 hours a day? Doubtful. There are two kinds of parents: those who walk into Babies'R'Us and go "now I can be prepared" and those who walk into Babies'R'Us and go "what is all this bullshit who needs this." The second kind worries less, spends less money and, dollars to donuts, is gonna raise kids who dominate the game.