Summer camp

School’s Out For The Summer: 2019 Summer Camp Preview

April 10, 2019 By Candice Dixon Leave a Comment Filed Under: Reader Recommendations, Reviews Tagged With: candice dixon, child care, outdoors, outside, park slope kids, Summer camp

Roasting marshmallows by the campfire, rock climbing up a cliff, swimming in the lake, and building robots are just a few fond childhood memories I have from summer camp. Everyday held unlimited adventures: hiking, field trips, acting, art classes, science experiments… all of which allowed my imagination to run wild! At the end of each camp day, I couldn’t wait to ramble about my exciting day to my parents. It was gåratifying to see their elated faces as I showed off my projects, or sang camp songs, and talked about my new camp-besties. Summer camp was liberation. No worries about homework, teachers, or tests… just sunny days, exploration, and great friendships.

If I could relive those days again I would without hesitation. And, if I were growing up in Brooklyn, I would have a hard time choosing from the list of awesome, diverse, action-packed choices this borough offers. It would be terrific to test my bow and arrow aim at Gotham Archery, master the halfpipe while boarding at Skateyogi or even land a lead role in a stage production at the Piper Theater summer session. In fact, I would definitely take a chance and experience a sleep-away summer session at Hidden Valley Camp in Maine. There are so many options and exposure for Brooklynite youngsters’ summer plans. Although that’s a wonderful thing, it can be overwhelming for parents to sift through options and make decisions, which is why the summer camp list was created. Use it as a guide to cater to your child’s creative, energetic, and inquisitive being. It is my hope that your child will look back as an adult and smile when thinking about past summer adventures due to a camp included on the list.

Day Camps

Gotham Archery – It’s time for kids to nock their bows, aim, and release toward to target at Gotham Archery! Children can use their imagination while learning how to properly and safely become a master archer. The summer camp is available weekly and daily if preferred. During the day, campers will gain recurve and compound archery and participate in games, be involved with STEM projects, XBOX Kinect and receive homework /reading time opportunities, and of course celebrate their achievements during the Friday pizza parties!

Dates: Weekly and daily registration available for June 27 – August 26

Location: 2 locations – Gowanus and Lower East Side

Cost:

Early bird special: receive 10% refund if space is reserved by April 1
JOAD kids receive 10% refund
Siblings receive 5% off
Ranges from $225 – $600 based on daily or weekly registration
Early drop-off and late pick-up available for additional costs

Kim’s Kids Summer Camp – For kids who seem to last like the Energizer Bunny, well, we’ve found their summer camp match! Kim’s Kids Summer Camp offers daily trips within New York City and surrounding areas. Excursions allow kid to be kids through hiking, building sand castles, forging through streams, running, climbing, and more. The only thing your child will need at the end of each day is a restorative night’s sleep. Also, for parent’s convenience, flexible scheduling is available.

Dates: July 1st – August 9

Location: Park Slope

Cost: Depends on session and number of days selected

Ages: 4 ½ through 12 years old

Mill Basin Day Camp – Here is a camp which caters to all – from toddler to teen. Mill Basic Day Camp offers a wide range of fun, interactive activities- like crafts, athletics, games and music for the little ones as well as swimming, field trips (baseball games, Great Adventure, museums, etc.), computer explorations for the older youth. This is ideal for families with children of varying ages to enjoy the summer together and make new friends.

Dates: July 1 – August 23

Location: Mill Basin

Cost: depends on time length and age level

Registration available for 4 – 8 weeks OR 3,4, or 5 days per week
Early drop – off and late pick – up available for additional costs

Ages: 3 years old until those entering 9th grade

Skateyogi – If your child prefers to shred the Brooklyn sidewalks on a skateboard, all day every day, than Skateyogi is totally their speed. Whether your child is interested in skating or is it obsessed with the sport, this is a young border’s summer paradise. Nonstop days full of halfpipes, ollies, and more! Potential campers may enjoy a trail opportunity before committing to the summer sessions, as day camp sessions are available during school holidays. At Skateyogi, registration can be arranged for one week or more depending on level of interest. Plus, intermediate skaters can participate in the camp’s Urban Shredders program.

Dates: Sessions start June 17 – August 30, 2019

Location: East side of Prospect Park and Golconda Skate Park

Cost: Early Bird registration until March 16 2019 (save up to 20% off)

Early Bird special: $600 – $675/week
Regular price: $725/week

Ages: 6 – 14 years old

Spoke the Hub (Camp Gowanee) – Youth artists will explore a myriad of art forms such as dance, theater, and digital film making; instructed by master artists at Spoke the Hub’s Camp Gowanee. Daily outdoor play allows children to release energy and then focus their creativity in the all-day intensives. Their original work will be presented in performance or portfolios and the end of each session. Be sure to consider the additional intensives for those 3 – 5 year old creative minds.

Dates: July 8 – August 30

Location: Park Slope

Cost:

Varies based of selected program track
10% discount for registration before March 1
Members receive 10% off
Siblings receive

• 10% discount for registrants before March 1

• Members receive 10% off

• Siblings receive 15% off

Ages: 8 – 12

TechExplorersBK – Is it hard to separate your child from a touch-screen device? Here’s an opportunity for kids to have a different type of hands – on approach to the technology to which they’ve grown attached. TechExplorerBK helps shift kids from consuming to producing technology. Classes are expert lead who provide a transformative learning environment for campers to experience the latest in technology and mold critical thinking, literacy, and problem solving skills. Curriculum covers 3D animation, Lego robotics, game making, and much more!

Dates: June 17 – August 30th

Location: Park Slope

Cost: varies depending on the sessions

Ages: Ages in 3rd to 8th grade, depending on the class

The League of Young Inventors– All little engineers are welcomed to join The League of Young Inventors this summer. Weekly classes will allow children to unlock the mysteries and magic of how the world works. Children are encouraged to ask questions and use their wondrous minds to sketch, measure, cut, and glue their way to resolutions. Session topics include The Physics of Play, Spy Gadgets and Gizmos, music composition, and water inventions.

Dates: June 17 – August 26

Location: Park Slope ( multiple locations)

Cost: varying ranges for weekly or daily rates

Ages: kindergarten to fifth grade; each activity specifies specific age group

The Tiny Scientist – At The Tiny Scientist, campers learn about the wondrous world in which they live and beyond. Through hands-on exploration, design, questioning, and analysis kids will have a blast gaining understanding how the world works. Creative, fun, engaging sessions include: earth science, the solar system, kinetics, dinosaurs, and much more!

Dates: Multiple sessions spanning from late June until the end of August. Click here for details.

Location: South Slope and Prospect Heights

Cost:

0% off all summer sessions at the Prospect Heights location until April 1, 2019
$140/day OR $600/week; early drop-off and extended day care available for additional costs.
0% sibling discount offered

Ages: 5 – 10 years old

Piper Theater – A world of wonder awaits young thespians at the Piper Theater. The entire month of July is filled with dramatic workshops, musical rehearsals, and improv to develop budding theater skills! Under the direct of John P. McEneny, students will create full-scale productions and perform them either in the Old Stone House of Washington Park.

Dates: July 1 – 26, excluding July 4th

Location: Park Slope

Cost: Varies depending on program

Ages: 10 – 16 years old

Sleepaway Camps:

Berkshire Hills Eisenberg Camp – An action-packed, adventurous summer retreat awaits all who attend Berkshire Hills Eisenberg Camp. This beloved co-ed Jewish sleepaway camp upholds Jewish values (respect, charity, community, and volunteering) and welcomes children from all backgrounds. Located in the beautiful Berkshires, campers can participate in traditional or culinary camp programs. Traditional camp includes water activities, athletics, arts and crafts and nature pursuits. The culinary campers will gain confidence in the kitchen through gaining food knowledge, field trips to local farms, visiting purveyors, and the Culinary Institute of America.

Dates and Cost: varies according to sessions and activities. Visit this link for the traditional camping experience and here for the culinary camp.

Location: Berkshires, New York

Hidden Valley Camp – A fantastic option for children who want some independence and have an affinity for the performing arts and adventure! A leader in international sleepaway camps for over 65 years, Hidden Valley Camp offers a plethora of thrilling options such as horseback ridding (including llamas!), water sports, visual and theater arts, just to name a few. Camp days are spent 350 acres of land near the Maine coast and the owners of the camp, live at the camp year round.

Dates:

June 22 – August 15
Select 3 – 4 weeks or 7 – 8 weeks sessions

Location: Freedom, Maine

Cost:

Varies depending on number of weeks
Sibling discounts available
lus, discounts if parent is a public school teacher, police officer, or fire fighter

Ages: 8 – 14 years old

The Endless Summer: Camps!

May 17, 2018 By Sarah Inocencio-Miller Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: creativity, daycamp, experience, fun, interests, kids, learning, season, sleep away, summer, Summer camp

With summer quickly approaching, bringing waves of sunny days and no school, many parents and families look to summer camps to help their kids stay active and make new friends. Luckily for park slope residents, and New Yorkers in general, camp options are countless and provide an array of opportunities for children to cultivate new skills, practice old ones, and foster their curiosity while building meaningful relationships.

Camp is a productive way to engage a child in their interests while also allowing them to unplug from phones and television in favor of connecting in positive social situations. Summer camp can be an incredibly meaningful period of time for some.

Best friends Marissa Roer and Kate Elliot, two Brooklyn residents, frequented camp throughout their childhoods and have maintained a friendship of ten years since first meeting at an arts conservatory camp. “I would endure the year and think about camp,” Marissa mused as Kate laughed. “Summer camp was when I learned about female dynamics. It was a good thing for me to experience while growing up,” Kate added. “I eventually ended up going to high school with two of the girls I bunked with.” Though their days of camp are long over, Marissa and Kate make a point of seeing each other once a week over Saturday yoga and brunch and frequently catch up with other camp peers, one whose wedding they will be attending in the fall of this year.

In the spirit of Marissa and Kate’s friendship, cultivated from years of camp, here is a definitive list of potential summer camps that will make any kid hope this summer really is endless.

For the big thinkers out there, there are plenty of camp options to satisfy even the most curious of minds. Located in Windsor Terrace, The Tiny Scientist summer program offers weekly sessions dedicated to in-depth explorations in topics ranging from chemistry experiments to sports science to the study of dinosaurs. Engineering For Kids is another great option that introduces 4-14 year olds to STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) in a hands-on way. Their website offers an easy-to-use class filter so you can sort through their breadth of programs, like scratch programming, electronic game design, 3D printing, and LEGO-based robotics. For ‘girls who wanna have fun’, Curious Jane is a no-brainer and provides girls entering 3rd-6th grades to explore and create among other inquisitive girls. Curious Jane also publishes a quarterly magazine so girls can DIY projects at home—perfect for the girls who couldn’t get enough of the summer program.

For the adventurers itching to get out and let out some energy, SKATEYOGI helps the aspiring shredder learn to skate safely. Programs allow children ages 6-12 to experience skateboarding outdoors in Prospect Park as well as in an air-conditioned, indoor space. Parents are included in the fun and receive daily pictures of skateboarding adventures around the city. Brooklyn Boulders offers summer sessions that teach kids boldness, creativity, strength, and fine motor skills through climbing. The team and instructors behind Brooklyn Boulders are “strong believers that attitude is everything, and believe in the value of failing gracefully”. A Park Slope favorite, Kim’s Kids Club allows children to take everyday adventures in their very own city. Flexible scheduling allows families on a budget or with summer plans to choose a camp experience that works for them. Activities include playground hopping around the city, visiting the Bronx Zoo, and swimming at Riis Beach (accompanied by Kim’s Kids very own lifeguards).

For The Budding Prodigies waiting to unleash their creativity, Gowanus Music Club gives kids the chance to hone their musical abilities by learning to play instruments. Supported by staff who themselves are musicians and the friends they make in their bands, rockers are given the opportunity to play live shows and showcase their talents to family and friends. For more stage opportunities, Brooklyn Acting Lab provides multiple sessions and a “play in a day” program. Each summer BAL also mounts one big musical to be performed at the end of the summer. This summer rising 3rd-8th graders will spend four weeks rehearsing Shrek The Musical Jr. with the session starting July 9 and running through August 3. Automatic Studios offers two different levels of classes for both the amateur filmmaker and the more serious auteur. The weeklong session packs the experience of making a movie into five days of fun and ends with a wrap party to celebrate their accomplishments. The two-week master class boasts a similar model, but offering a bit more time for budding directors to hone their craft through preproduction, shooting, and animation. BKLYN Clay offers affordable classes teaching the basics of hand building and wheel throwing techniques, while students get creative with the clay. At Brooklyn Sewcial kids are given one week to finish a unique project in a small classroom environment that motivates creativity and imagination. Spoke the Hub provides a Camp Gowanee Multi-Arts Summer Program for children ages 7-12 featuring an impressive lineup of master teachers. This summer artists such as Sachiyo Ito, a Japanese dance master and elder, and Iliana Quander, a well-known Brooklyn fashion designer will be joining the ranks of Spoke the Hub.

For The Tiny Chefs who want to take control of what’s on their plate, Food Art For Kids introduces the importance of fresh produce and how to integrate that into a meal. Sessions include weekly visits to Brooklyn Heights’ Green Market where fresh produce is picked out for the cooking projects of the week. Kids engage in cooking healthy meals and on Fridays treat themselves to a homemade pizza party. A farm-to-table summer camp, Butter Beans Kitchen offers wholesome culinary expeditions for children ages 6-10. At Butter Beans Kitchen, kids are given unique opportunities to engage with the environment in the city around them, like farming in urban gardens, beekeeping on rooftops, and catching fish in Central Park. Children make their lunches every day, and learn to cultivate a close relationship between the food they pick and what they will ultimately end up feeding themselves.

The traditional summer camp is usually sleep-away, which, although daunting at first, can be a child’s first steps towards independence and nurturing self-confidence in a safe environment. For those ready to take the plunge and find a home away from home, Windsor Mountain welcomes children into a co-ed, non-competitive sleep-away summer camp in Windsor, New Hampshire. Windsor Mountain’s hallmark is ‘directed free-choice’, which means campers have a say in all the activities they participate in and have staff and counselors at their disposal to help figure out how best to enjoy their summer at the mountain. With amenities like a farm, garden, forest, tree house, and ropes course, boredom is never an option. For those who want to get away but aren’t quite ready to tackle nights away from home, Deer Mountain Day Camp in Rockland County, NY offers day sessions for kids of all age groups with the traditional camp structure. Located on a mountainside next to a spring-fed lake, this 25-acre camp encourages outdoor play and exploration. Stony Creek Farmstead in Walton, NY offers children the opportunity to live on an organic farmstead and interact with animals and the environment in a sustainable, respectful way. The camp is offered in weekly sessions and provides distinctive activities like milking cows, foraging for wild food, and working on art projects.

As a 23-year-old with no children of my own and no real camp experience, I was pretty astounded by the sheer number of camps nestled away in Brooklyn. As a kid my parents would, by default, send me to summer school so I wouldn’t sit alone coloring in the living room for weeks on end. Although summer school held nothing of the richness of camps I’ve come to learn about, it did offer flexibility in electives, so I was lucky enough to be able to choose an area of art I was interested in and also attend a school that had some funding for this. In the first grade I chose to take the drama elective during summer school and although it was the most casual of experiences and I had the smallest of roles, I ended up harboring a secret flame for drama that never quite extinguished. I knew from that point on that I enjoyed theater, but was never given another opportunity to pursue it as I was stacked with my pre-existing extracurricular activities. Many years passed before I performed again.

In middle school it was customary for the 8th graders to put on a play before graduation and that year we put on Fiddler on the Roof Jr. I ultimately got one of the lead roles, and with the ecstasy of real stage time under my belt. I entered high school with a mission. At 3:01 on my first day of 9th grade I rushed to the performing arts center to sign up for auditions for the Theater Conservatory. The small flame that I had kept quietly within myself ended up defining my high school career and, eventually, my college career as well. Then, with a tad more acting knowledge than I had possessed in the first grade, I moved to New York City from my hometown of Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting.

Looking back on the journey that I’ve taken with the greatest passion I have in my life, I wish I had had more time to nurture the love for acting that I had within me.

Camps and summer programs teach leadership, interpersonal skills, courage, and creativity. More than anything, they allow kids to try new things alongside others who may have similar interests and ideas as them. It’s extremely important to encourage interests and hobbies at a young age. These experiences coalesce and inform a person deeply. And who knows? They may just stumble across a spark that fuels them for the rest of their lives! k

Be Prepared

May 15, 2018 By Nicole Kear Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: children, family, lesson, mother, sleep away camp, Summer camp, worrying

I never went to sleepaway camp as a child. I never wanted to, really, and it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing my over-protective mother would have suggested. She wouldn’t even let my sisters take candy from strangers on Halloween, opting instead to drive us to pre-arranged trick-or-treating sites, where we could trust the Kit-Kats were razor-blade-free. My mother was what is now called a helicopter parent, though that would be an understatement, I think, for her style of watchful parenting.

I always thought she went way overboard with her constant worrying. Then I had children. And I still thought it was pretty overboard. And then I sent those children to sleepaway camp.

It was the packing list that activated my anxiety. Not so much what was on the list, but what wasn’t.

“I thought the list would be longer,” I told my husband David, handing over the single–sided sheet. “Can this really be all a ten-year-old needs? For two weeks? In the woods?”

Woods make me nervous. This is mainly because I’m a city girl, but the fairytales I read as a child didn’t help. In fairytales, nothing good every happens in the woods. When kids enter the woods, witches try to eat them and wolves try to eat them and huntsman try to rip their hearts out of their chests.

“Everything she needs is on there,” said David, a veteran sleepaway camper and former Boy Scout. Despite his experience, I didn’t find this reassuring. He doesn’t really subscribe to the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared!” He’s a classic under-packer and the few times we’ve hiked, he’s refused to carry bear spray, and only begrudgingly consented to a bear whistle.

So I decided to trust my instincts and use the camp’s packing list as a first draft, a rough outline on which to build. I wanted to benefit from the experience of other parents so I posted on Facebook, soliciting suggestions of items to add.

“A bathrobe,” one friend wrote. “So she doesn’t have to walk from the bathrooms to her cabin in a towel.”

“Flip flops, for the gross showers,” wrote another.

I read these to my husband, with satisfaction.

“See? This stuff didn’t even occur to us!” I told him. “And we don’t want her walking around in a towel, for God’s sake. In the woods.”

“So pack her a bathrobe.”

“Of course I’m packing her a bathrobe,” I said. “The point is, we almost overlooked all this stuff.”

“And she would have been fine,” he grumbled.

“And she would have gotten Athlete’s Foot.”

Another friend responded to my post, advising that I treat my daughter’s clothes with permethrin. When I, ignorant, asked what this was, she explained it was a tick repellant.

Ticks.

I’d been so busy worrying about bears that I’d forgotten about ticks. Lyme-disease-carrying poppy-seed-sized ticks. What else, I wondered, was I forgetting about?

I purchased a large vat of Permethrin, which ended up being a sandora’s Box. Where do you draw the line on what gets treated? Shirts and shorts, obviously. But what about pajamas? And sheets? And the now-indispensable bathrobe?

I chatted with another mom who was also sending her daughter to sleepaway camp for the first time, and at first, this fellow feeling relaxed me.

.“The more you know, the more you worry,” she said.

“It’s true,” I agreed.

“Il’s like, I used to enjoy water parks,” she sighed.

“What’s wrong with water parks?”

“Oh, just the pedophiles.”

“WHAT PEDOPHILES?” I nearly screamed.

“Oh, it’s just – you didn’t know that water parks are, like, the number one place to find pedophiles?”

“No,” I said. “I did not know that.”

There was much I did not know. The awareness of how much was, to say the least, disquieting.

The more I worried, the more stuff I added to my packing list. I could not eradicate ticks, or far worse things, but I could pack stuff to repel them. My list swelled.

I packed three different kinds of flashlights, with extra batteries, because if the woods are menacing, imagine the woods in the dark.

I packed a battery-opened fan to clip onto the bed because what if it was broiling hot at night and she couldn’t fall asleep and that led to insomnia which can really ruin your day, I thought at 2am.

I packed a large pile of pre-addressed and pre-stamped enough envelopes.

“It couldn’t be easier for her to write to us now?” I showed David with pride.

“You could write the letters for her,” he said.

“I’m just worried she won’t communicate with us and we won’t know what’s going on.”

“Oh I know what you’re worried about,” he said. “Trust me.”

Drowning.

Tick bites.

Homicidal maniac loose in the woods.

Bullying.

Bears.

Social isolation.

Meningitis.

Nuclear warfare.

Getting lost in the woods.

Insomnia.

Homesickness.

That she’d have so much fun, her life back at home would pale in comparison, and she’d forever chase the halcyon days of summer camp.

My list grew. It needed staples.

Worrying is really very exhausting but what’s far more exhausting is worrying while pretending you are not – the which is critical, of course. Because you want your child to be unfettered and free and have a great time! And not give a passing thought to secondary drowning! I thought, more than once, that it was lucky I’d been professionally trained as an actress.

The monumentally time-consuming and expensive feat of procuring every item on my list was only matched in difficulty by the feat of fitting it all in the oversize duffel bag I had purchased. I was up past midnight on the night before she left, but I managed to make it work. Before I zipped it closed and handed it over to David, I had the idea to write little notes of love and encouragement and to tuck them into pairs of socks and shirts and bathrobe pockets. Then I went to bed and worried that those notes might be embarrassing and lead to public ridicule and potentially bullying, item number four on my list of Stuff to Worry About. But by then, the duffel bag had been lugged out to the car and was out of reach.

I knew it would be a battle not to cry when we said goodbye, but it was a battle I waged fiercely, knowing she’d take her cue from me, and it was a battle I won. My eyes were dry as I waved brightly and walked, fast, out the screen door.

What I didn’t know is that immediately after that, I’d start to feel relieved. I waited for the other shoe to drop but it didn’t. My worry was dialed way down from High to a Low Simmer, the kind you can ignore. What took its place was excitement about all the adventures my daughter would have.

As we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, almost back home, I said to David: “I’m actually feeling better.”

“Good,” he said. “I thought you would. You like to be prepared. Though you do tend to go way overboard.”

“But I let them go trick-or-treating!” I protested. “And I really never worry about razor blades in the Kit Kats.”

He nodded. “We all have to start somewhere.”

Nicole C. Kear is the author of The Fix-It Friends chapter book series for children, including the most recent titles, Three’s A Crowd and Eyes on the Prize. You can find more info at nicolekear.com.

Illustration by Heather Heckel

In Praise of the Summer Camp

May 10, 2017 By Caitlin Leonard Filed Under: A Camping We Will Go Tagged With: Brooklyn, kids, Park Slope, Summer camp

Attending summer camp is a memorable rite of passage. Whether it’s in the form of a weeklong sleep away adventure, or a daytime activity program, the camp experience comes with memories that can last a lifetime.

Camps today are metamorphosing to keep up with modern innovations. Although some stick to the tried and true values of physical activity, learning, and friendship building, there are now more specific concentrations to be found at all levels and on all kinds of different subjects. Whatever a child’s best interest, there is likely a summer camp centered around it. Evolutions in the summer camp have come to include everything from rock and roll to rock climbing, science experiments and media production.

New York City is the locale with some of the most extensive options, and kids will really have their pick when it comes to the classic or innovative camps when summer begins. Some standouts taking place this summer include Brooklyn Sewcial, which offers week-long creative programs focusing on interesting projects like fashion design, pottery, and art, and The Co-op School, which also fosters curiosity and learning through music, movement, fine arts, literature and science. Other camps are more academic minded but still take place in an enjoyable atmosphere, like Mathnasium, which has a unique program helping kids to keep their math skills strong throughout the summer. It includes no homework, quizzes or tests, and the focus is simply learning math while having fun.

Kim’s Kids Club is a Park Slope area summer program for kids, where they can just be kids. Daily activities include beach trips, rock climbing, and hiking. This program also offers flexible scheduling, meaning kids can attend for as little as three days per week, or as much as a six week camp.

Another advantage of living in a large city center is that often professionals are brought in for extra enrichment, and field trips can include visits to world-class art galleries and museums. For budding thespians and musicians, there are several options. For acting, there is Brooklyn Acting Lab which offers weekly immersive theatre programs, which incorporate play, games, art and music into each day. There is also Piper Theatre Productions, another notable opportunity where kids create full-scale outdoor theatre productions in Old Stone House and Washington Square. For this program, there are options for week-long acting camps, as well as four-week theatre and musical theatre workshops. Gowanus Music Club also offers lessons in rock music, where kids can experience recording sessions, playing in live performances, and find the joy of being in a band.

For cultural adventures, there is the aptly named Brooklyn Cultural Adventures Program whose 2017 theme is ”More than Meets the Eye: Uncover the incredible world around you.” This camp includes visits to cultural institutions, games, challenges, and tours focusing on everything from art and literature, to nature and science. Children are welcome from across the city, country, and world for these programs. Speaking of adventures, Brooklyn Boulders was hailed by Vogue as the “Best workout in Brooklyn.” With 22,000 square feet of climbing surface and with locations in New York, Boston, and Chicago, campers will find an unconventional experience to engage their imaginations and push them to their physical potential.

There are also camps focusing on different aspects of a child’s development, including religious traditions. Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst is a camp that quickly becomes a yearly tradition and important aspect of many campers lives. Their programs are known to promote close-knit relationships, explore the rich history of Judaism, and promote the social, emotional, and physical growth of each camper.

Stony Creek Farmstead, in Walton, upstate New York, offers a special experience for both campers and parents in a picturesque landscape. The farm is owned and operated by three generations of the Marsiglio family, and is known for their free-range and organic practices when it comes to meat and produce. The farm has luxurious platform tents, where many families from Brooklyn and Manhattan come stay and send their kids to the day camp while the adults can chill out or go antiquing. This year they are also offering an adult camp, workshops for adults, some running throughout the season and other mini workshops that will be offered during the kids day camp.

As a writer from the East Coast of Canada, I have had my fair share of summer camp experiences out in the New Brunswick wild. I didn’t necessarily focus on my writing skills at any camp I went to, though I might have been interested in that. Instead I followed my penchant for theatre and was keen for anything that could let me be creative. The embracing of my creative side developed the part of my brain that can imagine in many situations, including writing and creating stories out of thin air. While putting together the list of New York camps through my Canadian eyes, I understood that this is, of course, to be expected of the Big Apple; it has everything, even when it comes to summer camps. Kids can sign up to learn about almost anything including musical theater, art, or even their own religion or ethnicity. The amazing thing is there are camps to support kids in almost every facet of their lives and development, including their social, intellectual, artistic, and physical selves, with many focusing on developing the whole person, physically, mentally and spiritually. I think this is important — here’s why:

The time when the idea of summer camp is important is once in a person’s lifetime — more specifically, only at one major growth stage. At a certain point, you do grow up and are simply too old to go to summer camp and can only then participate as a camp counsellor (which could have its own merits and learning points). Seizing this opportunity while the time is right is a great idea. Being able to say you were a ”camper” means simply that you got to grow, you got to do things differently from during the school year, and you practiced making new friends, a skill that will likely stick around with anyone for a good long time. At the ‘camper’ point of development, we are at our most impressionable. Being in a summer camp can teach resilience, cooperation, and artistic or athletic abilities which leaves a lasting impact. Through these activities, kids find what they’re good at or who they really are. Having the freedom to just be a child — without any concerns or responsibilities away from the usual school schedule — means that kids can focus solely on fun, and this is when learning and development can become fluid, easy, and effortless.

During my own summer camp experience, I was able to learn a few things about myself I didn’t come to know during the school year. When put in a new situation with a bunch of kids, I was uneasy. Would I get to know all these people or even make friends with them? I was unsure, as I wanted to cling to my school-year friends. But people being people, we do each slowly learn to trust each other, and so did I. Suddenly the girl with the red hair and freckles had a name and a funny personality. Suddenly after about five days and nights of being away from parents, I didn’t feel like I needed them to tell me what to do quite as much. My routine was replaced by new traditions like meal hall, swimming, and canoeing, adoring older boy counselors, and sharing nightly snacks. As campers, we realized we could still thrive and develop, maybe more rapidly, in a different world where we all suddenly belonged.

For many, the hardest part of camp is the end, breaking up of the unique camp community leaving the now-familiar personalities, and saying good bye — at least until next summer.

A camper’s usual, everyday personality can be slowly broken open to reveal someone who is brave enough to try archery, bold enough to sing by a campfire, and passionate enough to belt out their team chants. A camper can grow to become someone who sleeps in a bunk bed, and knows how to tough out bugs and sunburns. Being at a summer camp, whether it’s for a day, overnight, or for a week-long sleep-away program, means that kids get the chance to be someone new. They get to live in a new environment or just experience a new situation, and to the best of their ability, thrive. Life is about growing up alongside and needing our parents, but camps allow children to experience life, no matter how long or how briefly, on their own. This can create a sense of self-knowledge and self-esteem that can create an important foundation for personal growth. Sure, campers may need to call home occasionally or even switch out of a camp which isn’t right. But having the chance to find a place to fit in and belong, that will be worth the time, the effort and the experience to grow. For as campers, we can be who we want to be without the adult worry of being who we’re supposed to be. That can be left until a later stage, and another time.