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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

It isn’t hard to get the impression, reading into the signs of the natural world, that every flower, tree and squirrel is as excited for the coming of spring as we humans are.

Take a walk in Prospect Park to do as the horticulturalists do and monitor the first blooms of our common perennial flowers. Snowdrops, the hearty little white bells, pushed stubbornly through snow drifts as early as February this year. In March you can expect to see tight purple bouquets of crocus sneaking out of the ground, accenting the forest floor and giving us hope that the city’s windiest month will soon be blowing in the familiar waft of warm air.

What better way to usher in a new season than by eating like it’s spring. Help jumpstart the pulse of local green markets by picking up some early spring greens like lettuce, spinach or coveted garlic scapes and ramps. Colonial settlers and modern-day wildlife would agree that the charmingly chilly days of spring can be a tricky time to meet caloric requirements. Pair the old with the new and cook up some of the staples that have been long forgotten in your pantry then finish them with leaves of spring. A quick mosey on down to Grand Army Plaza on Saturday or Bartel Pritchard Square on Sunday can pay dividends in farm-to-table fresh greens.

If you want to eat your way through more than one hundred local and regional food purveyors than find your way up to Breeze Hill in Prospect Park for the return of Smorgasburg. The lines are long but the inventive and tasty snacks on offer come with a view. You can take your meal to go and trek down the rustic trail at the back of the market to the quiet Lullwater where herons may also be searching for a meal. Just do everyone a favor and pack out your trash. The feast begins on April 7th and continues every Sunday from 11 AM to 6 PM.

Spring really encompasses two seasons: the abatement of winter is marked by a sticky mud season and the thirsty joy for those first sips of warm, fragrant air; then summer is around the corner.

Maybe cooped-up kids are the priority, their energetic limbs itching for activity after a winter short on sledding opportunities. Little Leaguers won’t have to wait long to start lapping those bases. The opening day ceremony hosted by the Prospect Park Alliance and the Prospect Park Baseball Association arrives on Saturday, April 6th. Park Slopers might remember the opening day parade by the throng of children marching down 7th avenue in baseball regalia, outstripping the marching band and posse of civic leaders. Anyone can join the parade which works its way to the ballfields, (best accessed around 9th street, 11th street, or Bartel Pritchard Square,) to watch the first pitch get thrown out. The day coincides with the seasonal opening of the lawns for ball players, picnickers and frisbee enthusiasts alike.

Those who are looking to ring in the spring with something a little more grueling can sign up for one of the near constant barrage of races that loop Prospect Park starting in the warmer weather. The Brooklyn Spring Half Marathon (http://www.citytri.com/brooklyn-spring-half-marathon ) is just one option to tour the park on four consecutive loops of its 3.35 mile track. For the less competitive runner our local tri-sport provider, JackRabbit, will continue to host community runs through the park for all paces. You can meet at their 7th Ave. location on Mondays and Fridays at 6:30 PM.

Spring really encompasses two seasons: the abatement of winter is marked by a sticky mud season and the thirsty joy for those first sips of warm, fragrant air; then summer is around the corner. April is a month of transition, manifest in the fleeting, show-stopping flower blooms. Daffodils dot woodland borders and blanket the 3rd street berms in sunny yellow. Tulips add a diverse color palette to the ground, their rainbow blooms sometimes surprising the gardener who planted them. The rotund buds of magnolia trees pop open and promptly the park is a pastel wonderland. Delicate little flower nubs run up the thin branches of the redbud, wide open dogwood flowers look up to the sky, lilacs perfume the air and a score of perennial flowers from hyacinths to bluebells join the floral fray. These and more are on display in Carmen’s Garden, just in front of the Litchfield Villa on 4th street and Prospect Park West. But nothing gets the casual flower enthusiast as excited as the sight of an allée of flowering cherry trees as they burst into fecund bloom, thick cotton-candy canopies of silky pink, purple and white petals. The display at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to the park is hard to top. A loop around the long meadow will offer a more complete collection of impressive blooming plants and trees.

By the time earth day rolls around on April 28th the bees will be buzzing and the park staff will have all hands on deck planting spring trees, shrubs and flowers. Engage with the environment by coming out to Prospect Park on that Sunday for citizen science exhibitions. The Prospect Park Alliance is making it easier than ever to get involved as a student of nature with their Audubon center educational programming. Earth day also starts off the park’s volunteer season. One of the most rewarding ways to give back to your community is by volunteering with the PPA’s volunteer corps (https://www.prospectpark.org/get-involved/volunteer/) and donating your time to repair trails, pick up trash and remove invasive weeds, among other ecologically-minded projects.

If you’re familiar with It’s My Park Day, a regular May occurrence, you may be surprised to find that this year the park has upped the ante. Spring Fling, encompassing the weekend of May 18th and 19th, is a celebration of the park and all the opportunities that come with nice weather. You can still volunteer in events sponsored by REI as in previous It’s My Park tradition, but now you can also expect a family fair with educational activities at the Audubon Center and the historic Lefferts house, ensuring the weekend has something for everyone.

By late spring the park is in full leaf, busy soaking up the sun’s rays and growing dense with greenery and life. Parkgoers are busy playing sports, taking walks and enjoying the most beautiful weather of the year. Brooklyn’s back yard is rife with opportunities from taking a kayak out on the lake to rollerblading around the drive. My personal recommendation is to simply explore the grounds. I’ve lead locals on tours that left them saying there’s an entirely different park inside of the heavily trafficked loops and zones they were used to. Getting lost in the Midwood or trying to catch a view from the top of lookout hill make Prospect Park one of the last places in the city where you can forget, for a few peaceful moments, that you are in New York City.

outside

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

Day Camps

Sleepaway Camps:

Park Slope Nature: Spring In Park Slope