Need camp ideas for your summer learning program? Incorporate activities that appeal to student interests and pair learning with fun. Consider the following camp ideas to keep students learning over the summer:
Robotics Club: Introduce students to robotics and coding through fun, hands-on activities. Robotics promotes problem-solving skills, critical-thinking skills and teamwork as well as fosters an interest in pursuing a technical career. Check out these 16 robots that kids can actually make.
Service Club: Get students involved in the community through service projects. Donate gently used books and toys to a local children’s hospital, organize a food drive or volunteer at an animal shelter. Service learning builds an array of 21st century skills, like problem-solving, critical-thinking, leadership and communication, and it helps to instill a long-term sense of responsibility to the community. See these tips for incorporating service learning to get started.
Fitness Club: Encourage students to get moving with various physical activities, exercises and outdoor games. From running to yoga to jumping rope, help students build physical strength and flexibility and push their bodies to a safe limit. Bonus: physical fitness also boosts self-esteem, energy levels and memory.
Engineering Club: Nurture future engineers, architects and innovators with challenging engineering activities designed to promote problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. Provide simple materials, such as paper cups, wire, cardboard, etc., and challenge students to build catapults, paper cars, windmills and other easy engineering activities.
Art Club: Introduce students to a variety of art forms like oil painting, cartooning and sculpting. Explore color, texture, shape and space while promoting creativity and fine-motor skills.
Entrepreneur Club: Inspire students to have an entrepreneurial spirit: to lead confidently, think critically and creatively, persevere and understand the value of teamwork. Have students pitch an idea, create a business plan, secure funding and launch their business. Invite local business owners to share their story and mentor students. Check out small business ideas for kids to get started.
Science Club: Tap into students’ inner Albert Einstein by conducting science experiments that spark exploration and discovery. Discover how lungs work by constructing a fake lung, learn the effects of UV rays with a sunscreen experiment and create voltaic batteries using an ice tray. Science Sparks is a great resource for finding simple science experiments for students.
Learning shouldn’t stop when the school year ends. Consider these summer camp ideas to combat summer learning loss and keep students learning all year long.
