Summer Camps - An Athlete, Mathlete or All of the Above

It's that time of year when we start to think about summer camps and start to think about this summer's activities including family trips, visits with relatives, summers at the beach, traveling, etc.. We want our kids to relax and yet spend their summers productively and we consider how to schedule a summer for our kids filled with fun activities, great experiences, learning and spending time with friends and family.

There are so many great options out there including camps dedicated to a specific activity, sport, craft or discipline and also multi-faceted day camps that have everything from swimming, sports, arts and crafts, horse-back riding, games, etc. 

I recall driving by a school one day last summer when camp was in session and the kids were learning archery. Three decades later, I was thrilled to see that camps nowadays still offer archery! What a quintessential summer camp activity and it brought back so many great memories of when I was a kid. My own kids are much too small to be handling a bow and arrow at this point (reference that famous line in "A Christmas Story"), but, still, I was amazed to see that.

There are some great nature camps on farms, some sponsored by the Audubon Society, which seem like wonderful experiences for kids. A lot of camps are also week-long endeavors, so parents can piece together a summer and cover several different areas. Whether you are focused on a particular sport, art, math, computers, STEM, theater, writing, music, swimming or all of the above, each summer we have the opportunity to introduce and expose our kids to familiar and new activities, perhaps not offered during the school year, hoping to spark an interest or maybe even a lifelong passion.